Category: Crime Comics

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The Sandman by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby


By Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, with Mike Royer & others (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2299-4 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In the early days of US comic books the fledgling industry was awash with chancers, double-dealers, slick operators and outright crooks. Many creative types fell foul of this publishing free-for-all but a rare few took to the cut and thrust and managed not only to survive but to prosper.

Just as the Golden Age of comics was beginning, two young men with big hopes met up and began a decades-long association that was always intensely creative, immensely productive and spectacularly in tune with popular tastes. They were Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, and gathered here are the joyous exploits of one of their greatest early comics collaborations…

Publisher Martin Goodman made Simon the editor of Timely comics S&K, created a host of iconic characters including Red Raven, Marvel Boy, The Vision, kid gang Young Allies and million-selling mega-hit Captain America. When Goodman failed to make good on his financial obligations, Simon & Kirby jumped ship to industry leader National/DC, who welcomed them with open arms and a big chequebook.

Initially an uncomfortable fit and bursting with ideas the cautious company were not comfortable with, they were handed two strips languishing in the doldrums to tide them over until they found their creative feet. Left to their own devices, they consolidated their Kid Gang genre innovation with The Newsboy Legion and their super-heroic mentor The Guardian, and a unique international army – The Boy Commandos – who shared a spotlight with Batman and Robin in Detective Comics (and whose own solo title became frequently the company’s third best seller during the war years).

Those moribund strips they were first unleashed upon featured big game hunter called Paul Kirk, Manhunter, who they overnight retooled as a darkly manic, vengeful superhero. The other was one of comic books’ first masked mystery-men: The Sandman.

This superb collection reprints all the S&K tales, including covers for issues they didn’t craft; lost art pages, original art reproductions as well as informative text articles from Kirby historian John Morrow and writer Mark Evanier. It even includes Simon & Kirby’s 1974 reunion reinvention of Sandman which in turn spawned one of Kirby’s last series for DC.

Created by Gardner Fox and first illustrated by Bert Christman, The Sandman premiered in either Adventure Comics #40 July 1939 (two months after Batman debuted in Detective Comics #27) or two weeks earlier in New York World’s Fair Comics 1939 – depending on whether some rather spotty distribution records can be believed.

Face utterly obscured by a gasmask, caped and business-suited millionaire adventurer Wesley Dodds wielded a sleeping-gas gun to battle a string of crooks and spies, accompanied by his paramour Dian Belmont, before gradually losing the readers’ interest and slipping from cover-spot to last feature in Adventure Comics, just as the cloaked pulp-hero avengers he emulated slipped from popularity in favour of more flamboyant fictional fare. Possessing a certain indefinable style, eerie charm but definitely no pizzazz, the feature was on the verge of being dropped when he abruptly switched to a skintight yellow and purple costume, complete with billowing cape. He also gained a teenaged sidekick in Sandy the Golden Boy (AC #69, December 1941, by Mort Weisinger & Paul Norris), presumably to move closer to the overwhelmingly successful Batman model.

It didn’t help much.

So, when Simon & Kirby came aboard with #72, the little banner above the logo on the Jack Burnley Starman cover gave no hint of the pulse-pounding change that had occurred. ‘Riddle of the Slave Market’ saw a sleek, dynamic pair of gleaming golden lions explode across 11 pages of graphic fury as the Sandman – sans daft cape – crushed a white collar criminal with a nasty line in illicit indentured servitude. Moreover, the hero had overnight acquired a unique gimmick: Sandman’s crusades against crime were presaged by the targeted perpetrator suffering nightmares of imminent retribution…

The semi-supernatural element and fascination with the world of dreams (revisited by S&K a decade later in their experimental suspense series The Strange World of Your Dreams) added conceptual punch to equal the kinetic fury of their art, and #73 (with S&K’s Manhunter now hogging the cover) Sandman strip ‘Bells of Madness!’ ramped up tension in another spectacular action epic wherein the Dream Warriors expose a cunning murder plot.

With AC #74 Sandman & Sandy took back the cover spot (only their third since #51), holding it until the feature ended. Only once did Sandman not appear on the cover – #99: another S&K Manhunter classic. From #103, the magazine underwent a complete overhaul with new feature Superboy headlining and with established regulars Green Arrow, Aquaman, Shining Knight and Johnny Quick parachuted in from other magazines.

The story for #74 was an eerie instant classic: ‘The Man Who Knew All the Answers’ was a smalltown professor who artificially increased his intellect – but not his ethics. When his perfectly planned crimes bring him into conflict with the heroes, it proves that his brain enhancer did nothing for common sense either. Then ‘The Villain From Valhalla!’ (AC #75 June 1942) pits the galvanic champions against a hammer-wielding Norse god and climaxing in a cataclysmic Battle Royale, followed by an equally astounding clash with sinister floral foe Nightshade. ‘The Adventure of the Magic Forest’ stemmed from World’s Finest Comics #6 (Summer 1942), one of two S&K exploits in that legendary anthology.

Sandman was a founding member of the Justice Society of America, appearing in many issues of All-Star Comics. A number of pertinent chapters therein were also generated by Joe & Jack, but are sadly not included in this otherwise comprehensive compendium: completists will need to track down the superb All-Star Archives volumes 4 & 5 or some of the new DC Finest Justice Society compilations for those dynamic classics.

Adventure #76 again heavily emphasised foreboding oneiric elements in ‘Mr. Noah Raids the Town!’ as a soothsaying mastermind unleashes preposterously intelligent animals to steal and kill, before #77’s ‘Dreams of Doom!’ finds an innocent man plagued by nightmares and compelled to solicit the aid of the Master of Dreams… and only just in time!

A sinister Swami is exposed in ‘The Miracle Maker!’ before their final World’s Finest guest-gig (#7, Fall 1942) dips heavily into exotic fantasy for ‘A Modern Arabian Nightmare!’ Adventure #79 then bangs the patriotic drum in eerie temporal-trap mystery ‘Footprints in the Sands of Time!’ It’s back to thrill-a-minute manic crime mayhem for #80’s ‘The Man Who Couldn’t Sleep!’ before ‘A Drama in Dreams’ presents a baffling conundrum for Sandy to solve alone, after which the creators indulge in some seasonal shocks in madcap Yule yarn ‘Santa Fronts for the Mob.’

AC #83 brought blockbusting boxing romance as the heroes aid ‘The Lady and the Champ!’ while including a gloriously over-the-top Boy Commandos ad featuring Hitler, Mussolini & Tojo as only Jack & Joe could defame them. Next comes gloriously Grand Guignol saga ‘Crime Carnival’ and delightfully wry romp ‘The Unholy Dreams of Gentleman Jack’, before S&K return to the favoured theme of childhood poverty in ‘The Boy Who Was Too Big for his Breeches.’

The war was progressing and soon both Joe & Jack would be full-time servicemen, so perhaps the increasingly humanistic tales of their latter run were only to be expected. The shift in emphasis certainly didn’t affect the quality of such gems as ‘I Hated the Sandman!’ in #87 wherein narcoleptic Silas Pettigrew learns a salutary lesson, or heartwarming, exuberant childhood fantasy ‘The Cruise of the Crescent’, whereas #89’s kidnap drama ‘Prisoner of his Dreams’ and the boisterous ‘Sleepy Time Crimes!’ proved that whatever else happened, action and excitement would always remain series watchwords.

In the months prior to their induction, Simon & Kirby went into overdrive, building a vast reserve of inventory stories for their strip commitments, but even so relentless publishing deadlines soon ate them up. Adventure Comics #91 featured the last S&K yarn for a year and a half, long after Kirby had shipped out to fight in Europe and Simon had begun his tour of duty with the US Coast Guard. ‘Courage a La Carte’ has precious little – if indeed any -Kirby art in it, but is nonetheless a sterling saga of malice unmasked and justice triumphant, after which only the covers of Adventure #92-97 kept the artist’s light burning in the heart of fans.

The star creators returned for issue #100 (October/November 1945) with tempestuous crime caper ‘Sweets for Swag!’, the cover of #101 and again inside #102 with swansong drama ‘The Dream of Peter Green!’, with Sandman & Sandy exposing shoddy dealings in the city contracting department before ensuring ghetto kids had decent playgrounds to grow fit and healthy in.

National Comics was no longer a welcoming place for the reunited duo. By 1947 S&K had formed their own studio, beginning a long, productive relationship with Harvey Comics (Stuntman, Boy’s Ranch, Captain 3-D, Lancelot Strong: The Shield, The Fly, The Three Rocketeers and others) whilst creating a stunning variety of genre features for Crestwood/ Pines (all supplied by their Essankay/Mainline studio shop). These included Justice Traps the Guilty, Black Magic, Fighting American, Bullseye, Foxhole and landmark innovation Young Romance amongst many more (see the superb Best of Simon and Kirby for a salient selection of these classic creations).

As comics went through bad times the pair eventually went their separate ways, but were reunited for one last hurrah in 1974 whilst both working once more for DC. The result was a re-imagined Sandman: this time a fully fantastic scientific master of the metaphysical, policing the nightmares of humanity from a citadel deep in “The Dream-Stream”.

‘The Sandman’ (scripted by Joe, drawn/edited by Jack & inked by Mike Royer) is pure escapist delight, describing how young Jed Paulsen taps into the oneiric horrors of villainous cybrid General Electric as he attempts to conquer “the World of Our Dreams”. When all hope is exhausted, Jed is rescued and befriended by the omniscient Lord of Sleep and his ghastly assistants Brute & Glob…

This rambunctious romp is a great place to end our volume but since six further adventures of this Weaver of Dreams were completed (albeit with no Simon and varying degrees of Kirby) perhaps one day they too will make the jump to graphic novel immortality…

After decades of neglect the glorious wealth of Kirby material available these days is a true testament to his influence and legacy, so this magnificent collection of his collaborations with fellow pioneer Joe Simon is a gigantic box of delights perfectly illustrating the depth, scope and sheer thundering joy of the early days of comics: something no amount of corporate shoddy behaviour can ever diminish. Maybe it’s time to systematically rerelease it and all the rest of these dream ticket items?
© 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1974, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1905 Nancy cartoonist Ernie Bushmiller was born, sharing natal honours with Alfredo Alcala (Voltar, Kong the Untamed, The Rampaging Hulk, Savage Sword of Conan, Swamp Thing) in 1925; Malaysian cartoonist Rejabhad (Periwira Mat Gila) in 1939; inker Terry Austin, (Detective Comics, X-Men, Superman Adventures, Popeye) in 1952 and Canadian illustrator Chris Bachalo (Uncanny X-Men, Generation X, Death, Shade the Changing Man, Doctor Strange) in 1965.

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Came the Dawn and Other Stories illustrated by Wallace Wood (The Fantagraphics EC Comics artist Library volume 2)


By Wallace Wood, with Al Feldstein, Harry Harrison, Gardner F. Fox & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-546-4 (HC/Digital edition

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. This book also contains Discriminatory Content employed for dramatic effect.

EC began in 1944 when comic book pioneer Max Gaines sold the successful superhero properties of his All-American Comics company – including Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkman – to half-sister National/DC. He retained only Picture Stories from the Bible, with a plan to produce a line of Educational Comics and with schools and church groups as the major target market. Max then augmented his core title with three more in similar vein: Picture Stories from American History, Science and World History. The worthy but unsustainable project was already struggling when he died in a boating accident in 1947. His son William was eventually convinced to assume control of the family business and, with much support and encouragement from unsung hero Sol Cohen and multi-talented associate Al Feldstein, transformed the ailing enterprise into Entertaining Comics, consequently triggering the greatest qualitative leap forward in comic book history…

After a few tentative false starts and abortive experiments, Gaines settled into a bold and impressive publishing strategy, utilising the most gifted illustrators in the field to tell a “New Trend” of stories aimed at an older, more discriminating audience.

From 1950 -1954 EC was the most innovative and influential publisher in the US, dominating the genre markets for science fiction, war, horror and crime comics. The company even added a new type of title and another genre with the creation of parody magazine Mad…

This second volume of the Fantagraphics EC Library is a magical and groundbreaking omnibus of horrific tales and human dramas displaying the astounding artistic expertise of Wallace Allan Wood: one of the greatest draughtsmen our art form has ever produced.

Woody was a master of every aspect of the business. He began his career lettering Will Eisner’s Spirit strip, moved into pencilling and inking and latterly, publishing. After years working all over the comics and syndicated strip industries, as well as in legitimate illustration, package-design and other areas of commercial art, he devised the legendary T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents franchise and even created one of the first adult independent comics with Witzend as the 1960s closed.

The troubled genius carried the seeds of his own destruction, however. Woody’s life was one of addiction (booze and cigarettes), traumatic relationships, tantalisingly close but always frustrated financial security, illness and eventually suicide. It was as if all the joy and beauty in his existence stayed on the pages and there was none left for real life.

Although during his time with EC Wood became the acknowledged and undisputed Master of Science Fiction art in America, he was equally adept, driven and accomplished in the production of all genres. This powerful collection concentrates on some of his best early crime, horror and suspense tales and includes all the evocative, emotionally-charged social dramas (lovingly dubbed “Preachies”) which Feldstein & Bill Gaines devised to address hot-button issues and challenge the smugly hierarchical status quo of post-war triumphalist America.

These strident, still truly shocking morality plays viciously jabbed at the nation’s dark underbelly, attacking prejudice, police corruption, drug abuse, sexual attitudes, racism, institutionalised intolerance and all manners of hypocrisy. It’s no stretch to consider that these tales, more than any other childhood influence, probably shaped the resurgent liberal attitudes which blossomed as the future “Flower Power” generation reached their majority a decade later. They certainly riled the powers that be who made sure that when the Comics Code Authority was established all such dangerously seditious fare was kept well away from the kiddies…

The stories are re-presented here in stark yet lavish monochrome, with supplementary interviews, features and dissertations, beginning with Bill Mason’s ‘Come the Stories’ weighing the yarns included here with forensic discipline. Then the pictorial parade picks up with rather pedestrian scam caper in ‘The Werewolf Legend’ (Vault of Horror #12 April/May 1950) as an innocent man is convinced he’s a ravening monster. It was scripted by prolific and ubiquitous Gardner Fox, one of Gaines senior’s greatest assets and discoveries. The pencils are by cartoonist Harry Harrison (Stainless Steel Rat, Make Room! Make Room!, The Technicolor Time Machine, Bill, the Galactic Hero) and inked by Wood. Although Harrison found his greatest fame as a prestigious prose author in later years, he was a major player in the comics biz during the 1950s and had worked with Wood as a jobbing production team since they’d met at the Cartoonists and Illustrators school in 1948.

For Haunt of Fear #15 the trio concocted legend of lethal legerdemain ‘The Mad Magician’, whilst an anonymously-authored enigma of ‘The Living Corpse’ (Crypt of Terror #18) edged closer to truly supernatural shenanigans as another illusionist took things too far in pursuit of his craft…

Fox scripted and Harrison pencilled ‘The Curse of Harkley Heath’ in VoH #13, wherein a gothic triangle of greedy heirs come to unpleasant, untimely ends after a will is read, after which Wood began handling all the art chores, starting with ‘Horror-Ahead!’ in HoF #16 (July/August 1950) when rival curio collectors endure a jungle jaunt in search of shrunken skulls and end up the only way they possibly could…

A Noir-tinged new era began when Al Feldstein began scripting for Woody. ‘Death’s Double-Cross’ – from the sublimely mature Crime SuspenStories #1 (October/November 1951) offers the twisted tale of a woman cheating on her husband with his twin brother in a moody masterpiece reminiscent of James M. Cain. Naturally it quickly turns into a nightmare that won’t end pretty…

Fox delivered a final shot in ‘The Man from the Grave’ from HoF #4, which saw a dissolute craftsman commit gruesome murder for his art… and live to regret it in desperate luxury and a relentless, compulsive paroxysm of over-work, before Feldstein’s ‘Terror Ride!’ (Tales From the Crypt #21) finds young lovers who soon regret being the last couple to ride a decrepit Amusement Park’s Old Mill boat attraction. Feldstein’s epic run of stories fill most of this tome and continue in a yarn from Haunt of Fear #5, where Wood’s dark imagination and gift for  rendering grotesques is expertly exploited in ‘Horror in the Freak Tent!’ Here a cruel carnival owner who mercilessly mistreats his exotic employees finally receives a macabre measure of justice…

Crime SuspenStories #3 then provides a fearsome farrago of betrayal and vengeance when two fugitive bandits are ‘Faced With Horror!’ after picking the wrong plastic surgeon to sort out their public notoriety problems, whilst ‘So They Finally Pinned You Down!’ (HoF #6) follows a troubled soul who can’t understand why he’s always stumbling over dead women…

The macabre mayhem concludes with two tasty titbits from Tales From the Crypt #24 & 25, beginning with a classic philandering-murderer-gets-his-come-uppance saga in ‘Scared to Death!’, after which a baroque body-switching melodrama concerning a cunning crone and a lovely young thing compels a bewildered husband to conclude ‘Judy, You’re Not Yourself Today!’…

The remainder of this potent volume is comprised of those controversial conscience-rending polemical passion-plays and human dilemmas Gaines called Preachies, opening with ‘The Guilty!’ as seen in Shock SuspenStories #3 (June/July 1952), which sees a typical small town enflamed by the murder of a young white girl. The Sheriff knows the black kid in his jail is guilty and is just as keen as the mob to spare the State the cost of a trial and takes steps to ensure it too.

… And that’s when the girl’s white boyfriend confesses…

Although stridently moralising and rather heavy handed by contemporary standards, these stories are the very bedrock of EC’s well-deserved reputation as the crusading creators of America’s very first adult comics for mature readers. Moreover, these ugly truths were gloriously draped in so very beautiful clothes, with Wood’s incredible illustrations inspired by the fiercely impassioned scripts, soaring to unparallelled heights of sensitivity with gut-wrenching impact.

Shock SuspenStories #4 took the cultural campaign further in a sordid tale of the innocent witness relentlessly beaten into a ‘Confession’ by cops determined to capture a hit-&-run driver who’d killed their Lieutenant’s wife. So why then, is the grieving officer’s car all banged up and covered in blood? Sheer, old-fashioned anti-Semitism fuels the ‘Hate!’ of a quiet little town and leads to the death of a family too stubborn to be warned. Imagine instigator John Smith’s surprise when his appalled mother tells the entire town that he was adopted and what his true origins are. Shock SuspenStories #6’s ‘Under Cover!’ combines the local Klan chapter’s campaign of punishment-floggings for miscegenation with the end of a crusading reporter who tries to expose the scandal. Tragically, he forgot that there might be almost anybody under those pointy hoods…

In #7 ‘The Bribe’ reveals how even the most honest and dedicated of civil servants can be pushed into abandoning his principles – especially with a loving daughter, her upcoming wedding and crushing society pressure hitting him so hard…

Even today ‘The Assault!’ is potentially the most contentious tale here, exposing how a small town girl with salacious appetites callously guards her precious but precarious reputation by framing an old man for her “rape”. In typical tone for those times, her lie ultimately and inevitably causes two deaths, after which eponymous ‘Came the Dawn!’ from Shock SuspenStories #9 offers a superb  example of Greek tragedy in modern dress. Here a lonely backwoods hermit finds a beautiful naked woman in his cabin and, after a night of mutual passion with the girl of his dreams, discovers that an inmate fitting her description has escaped from the nearby asylum. Only after he’s locked his dream girl outside out does he discover that she’s not the only mysterious blonde lost in the forest…

Far less emotionally loaded but equally devastating is the darkly introspective ‘…So Shall Ye Reap!’ (Shock SuspenStories #10) which sees a penitent, angry young man contemplating every hypocritical act of his pompously pious parents before reaching his own moment of judgement prior to ‘In Gratitude’ launching a simply breathtaking assault on the nation’s double standards after a wounded soldier comes home to a hero’s welcome. However, he savagely turns on his friends and family when he finds out what they’ve done to the “coloured man” who saved his life…

More quirky crime-caper than social commentary, ‘Fall Guy’ (Shock SuspenStories #12) follows the doomed decade that saw upstanding citizen Danny Jansen steal a fortune to please a greedy girl far out of his league only to spend ten years in jail paying for it. Surprisingly, she waited all that time for him, but wasn’t best pleased when he couldn’t remember how to retrieve “their” ill-gotten gains…

A campaign of hate to drive out a man who foolishly admitted to being part-Negro ends in suicide and a sense of smug satisfaction when the bigot-in-charge boasts of his success to the local doctor in ‘Blood-Brothers’ (Shock SuspenStories #13). Imagine the vile cross-burner’s surprise when the aged medic reveals the source of the transfusion which had long-ago saved the happy hate-monger’s life. Next, ‘The Whipping’ (scripted by Feldstein & Gaines for Shock SuspenStories #14) returns to scandalmongering territory, when a dutiful daughter defies her racist father and starts dating an Hispanic boy. Dad doesn’t call it that, and the outrageous steps he and his pure-white buddies take to end the affair horrifically backfire…

The last tale reprinted here is ‘The Confidant’ (Feldstein, Gaines and Wood from Shock SuspenStories #15, June/July 1954), created at a moment in time when public outcries against comics was reaching its fevered peak. It deals with mob-justice and sees an entire town baying for the blood of a newcomer who they “know” has murdered a young girl. Then, when a dark stranger arrives searching for one of his children, the unofficial posse jump to a wrong conclusion with tragic and irreparable consequences…

Please forgive any deliberate vagueness on my part here: the point is to make you want to read these poignant. shocking stories and I don’t want to devalue their impact or spoil your otherwise assured enjoyment…

A detailed history of Woody the flawed genius is provided by historian S.C. Ringgenberg in prose piece ‘Wallace Wood’ after which this truly beautiful book is closed by ‘Behind the Panels: Creator Biographies’ compiled by Arthur Lortie & and Bill Mason before Ted White’s ‘Crime, Horror, Terror, Gore, Depravity, Disrespect for Established Authority – and Science Fiction Too!: ‘The Ups and Downs of EC Comics: A Short History’ offers a comprehensive rundown of the entire EC phenomenon.

The short, sweet, cruelly limited EC back catalogue has been revisited ad infinitum in the decades since its demise. Those amazing yarns changed not just comics but also infected the larger world through film and television to convert millions into dedicated devotees still addicted to New Trend tales. Whether you are an aged EC Fan-Addict, a nervous newbie, or simply a mere fan of brilliant stories and sublime art, Came the Dawn is a book no sane and/or sensible reader can afford to be without.
This edition © 2012 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All comics stories © 2012 William M. Gaines Agent, Inc., reprinted with permission. All other material © 2012 the respective creators.

Today in 1904 British cartoon colossus Reg Parlett (Just Jake, Billy Bunter, Mowser, countless assorted strips for Merry and Bright, Funny Wonder, Radio Fun, Film Fun, Knockout, Buster, Valiant, Lion, Whizzer and Chips, Cor!!, Whoopee!, Jackpot, Wow!) was born, sharing the day with Golden age letterer Betty Bentley (Superman, Batman, Starman) in 1916; artist/illustrator/inker Dave Hunt (Transformers, Avengers, Amazing Spider-Man, Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, Wonder Woman, DC Comics Presents) in 1942; Belgian creator Luc Cromheecke (Taco Zip, Tom Carbon & Roboboy) in 1961; writer/letterer John Layman (Chew, Thundercats, Marvel Zombies vs. The Army of Darkness) in 1969 and writer/moviemaker Kevin Smith (Clerks, Chasing Amy, Daredevil: Guardian Devil, Green Arrow, Batman: The Widening Gyre, Batman: Cacophony, Jay and Silent Bob) in 1970.

Belgian master storyteller François Craenhals (Karan, Fantômette, Chevalier Ardent, Les 4 As, Pom et Teddy) died today in 2004.

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Showcase Presents Martian Manhunter volume 2


By Jack Miller & Joe Certa & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2256-7 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

As the 1950’s opened, comic book superheroes were nearing the lowest point of a steep decline, having given way to a steady stream of genre-based he-men and “Ordinary Joes” in extraordinary circumstances. By the time “Red-baiting”, witch-hunting Senate hearings and media investigations into causes of juvenile delinquency had finished, the industry was further depleted by the self-inflicted excision of any kind of reference to mature themes or content. The self-imposed Comics Code Authority took all the hard edges out of the industry output, banning horror and crime comics whilst leaving their ghostly, sanitised anodyne shades to inhabit the adventure, western, war and fantasy titles that remained.

US comics could have the bowdlerised concept of evil and felonious conduct, but not the simplest kind of repercussion: a world where mad scientists plotted to conquer humanity without killing anybody, and escaped imprisonment whilst cowboys shot guns out of opponents’ hands and severed gun-belts with a well-aimed bullet, without ever drawing blood. Moreover, no civil or government official or public servant could be depicted as anything other than a benevolent saint…

With corruption, venality and menace removed from the equation, comics were forced to supply suspense and tension to their works via mystery and imagination – but only as long as it all had a rational, non-supernatural explanation…

A sci fi series with cop show trappings, John Jones, Manhunter from Mars depicted the clandestine adventures of stranded alien J’onn J’onzz; an eccentric, frequently formulaic (weren’t they all?) yet never disappointing B-feature strip, it debuted in Detective Comics #225 (November 1955), at the height of America’s Flying Saucer fever. Excluding mutant adventurer Captain Comet (premiering in Strange Adventures #9, cover-dated June 1951) and beating by a year the new Flash – who launched in Showcase #4 (October 1956) – Jonzz was arguably the first superhero of the Silver Age.

Hardly evolving at all – except for finally going public as a superhero in Detective #273 (November 1959) – the police-based strip ran there until #326 (1955 to 1964), before migrating over to The House of Mystery and a whole new modus vivendi, beginning with #143. He stayed there until #173, finally fading away during the Great Superhero Cull of 1968-70.

In Showcase Presents Martian Manhunter volume 1 ‘The Strange Experiment of Dr. Erdel’ revealed how a reclusive Earth genius built a robot-brain which could access Time, Space and the Fourth Dimension, and accidentally plucked an alien scientist from his home on Mars. After a brief conversation with his unfortunate guest, Erdel succumbed to a heart attack whilst attempting to return J’onn J’onzz to his point of origin.

Marooned on Earth, the Martian discovered that his new home was riddled with the ancient and primitive cancer of Crime and, being decent and right-thinking, resolved to use his natural abilities (which included telepathy, psychokinesis, intangibility, shape-shifting, invisibility, super-strength, speed, flight, vision, super-breath, invulnerability and so many others) to eradicate the evil, To facilitate the crusade he adopted human form and became a detective, working clandestinely as an “ordinary” policeman. His only concern was the commonplace chemical reaction of fire which sapped Martians of all their mighty powers. With his name Americanised to John Jones he enlisted as a Police Detective in Middletown and worked tirelessly to improve his new home; fighting evil secretly using his inherent powers and advanced knowledge with no human even aware of his existence.

This second & final Silver Age selection reprints in moody monochrome Detective Comics #305-226 (July 1962-April 1964) and the Manhunter’s entire House of Mystery career exploits (#143-173, spanning July 1964 to March/April 1968), almost all of which were written by Jack Miller and illustrated by the indefatigable Joe Certa.

One of the longest tenures and partnerships in DC comics’ history (although creator records are sadly incomplete), Miller – and perhaps occasionally Bob Haney – produced a wealth of scripts for veteran illustrator Certa, who had previously worked for the Funnies Incorporated comics “Shop” and all over the industry. His other credits included Captain Marvel Junior and assorted genre titles for Magazine Enterprises (Dan’l Boone, Durango Kid); Lev Gleason’s crime comics, Harvey romance titles and others. At DC he drew nautical sleuth Captain Compass and genre anthology tales for such titles as Gang Busters and House of Mystery. Certa also drew the newspaper strip Straight Arrow and ghosted the long-lived boxing legend Joe Palooka. In the 1970s, he moved to Gold Key, working on mystery tales, TV adaptations and all-ages horror stories.

This traditional all-ages delight opens with ‘J’onn J’onzz vs. Futureman’ from Detective Comics #305, wherein a cop from the 30th century follows a Martian lawbreaker back to 1962 and mistakes J’onzz for his fugitive quarry. When malign B’enn B’urnzz then aligns with ruthless earth criminals, the stage is set for a spectacular super-power showdown…

In #306 crooks using fantastic robot animals are given an unexpected boost when a blazing meteor saps the Manhunter’s life force and almost augurs ‘The Last Days of J’onn J’onzz’, whilst a bewildering display of disguises and quick-changes are necessary to save John Jones’ police partner Diane Meade when the detective – ‘Alias Scarface Scanlon’ – goes undercover to expose a criminal safe-house in #307.

DC #308 revealed how a visit to a feudal European county finds the Alien Avenger embroiled in a coup and battling ancient magic on ‘The Day John Jones Vanished!’ after which he foils an alien invasion whilst wearing the form of a reclusive human in ‘The Man Who Saved Earth’ before overcoming a cunning crook with a shrinking ray in #310’s ‘The Miniature Manhunter!’ Vacationing Diane is on Jade Island when it becomes the beachhead for ‘The Invaders from the Space Warp’ (DC #311) but to defeat uncanny extra-dimensional thieves, J’onzz also needs the aid of friendly alien R’ell and his uncanny talking pet. When the war was over, however, bizarre beastie Zook is trapped in our world forever…

A new era opened in #312 as the cute E.T. became ‘J’onn J’onzz’ Pesky Partner’. Zook could change shape and generate extreme heat and cold but had the mind of a five-year old, and thus posed a frequent threat to our hero’s secret identity by slavishly trailing him as he stalked villains…

The kid learned quickly though and by #313, wherein ‘The Wizard who Conquered J’onn J’onzz’ almost killed the Martian with a stolen magic wand, Zook had adapted to a life of seclusion on Earth as J’onzz’s secret weapon. The extra-dimensional ET proves his worth in #314 when a shape-shifting Saturnian steals the detective’s identity in ‘J’onn J’onzz vs. John Jones’, and helps defeat a villain as powerful as Manhunter himself, and does so again in #315 when his uncanny senses penetrate the various identities of a crooked stage performer who is ‘The Man of 1000 Disguises!’

Bizarre mutagenic meteors were commonplace at this time and another one transferred the hero’s abilities to ‘The Bandits with Super-Powers’ in DC #316, but Zook and a now Martian-powered Diane prove up to the task of thwarting them, after which J’onzz, Diane & Zook have their hands full facing ‘The Challenge of the Alien Robots’ delivered by greedy human bandit Jasper Dowd in #317. When the terrific tyke takes a blow to the head he briefly acts as ‘J’onn J’onzz’ Enemy – Zook’ before being restored by another bash on the bonce, after which the vacationing detective strolls through a time warp and into a war of succession in mediaeval Auvergne, eventually restoring rightful ruler Prince Charles to his stolen throne as ‘J’onn J’onzz – Wizard of 1463!’.

Back in the 20th century, #320 saw Detective Jones and Zook solve ‘The Case of the Golden Eagle’ to restore a lost treasure to France, after which #321 has the Martian and his pal battling the fantastic shape-shifting threat of ‘The Cosmic Creature’, and in #322 an old Batman villain migrates from Gotham to Middletown becomes intent on being ‘The Man who Destroyed J’onn J’onzz’. Professor Arnold Hugo had enlarged his intellect – and cranium – to become a cerebral supervillain whose devices enabled him to steal the alien’s powers. However, the wily mastermind did not realised that ludicrous-looking “pet” Zook was privy to his fallen friend’s weaknesses too…

For Detective #323 Manhunter flew solo on ‘The Hobby Missions’ wherein a charity auction for his services is suborned by a vicious criminal seeking lost artefacts bestowing awesome power, whilst in #324 the hero tackles a bizarre rampaging monster and is trapped in its hideous form as ‘The Beast who was J’onn J’onzz’ until Zook intervenes. Then, a crook’s time-ray banishes the Manhunter to Ancient Greece where he helps ‘The Hero of 500 B.C.’ crush incredible creatures… until Zook saves him.

Big changes were in the air at DC, and by the end of 1963 Julius Schwartz, who had revived much of their line – and the entire industry – with his modernization of the superhero, was asked to work his magic with the creatively stalled, nigh-moribund Caped Crusader. Bringing his regular team of top-notch creators with him, Schwartz stripped down the core-concept, downplaying all the aliens, outlandish villains and daft transformation tales, bringing a cool modern take to the capture of criminals and even overseeing a streamlining rationalisation of the art style itself. The most apparent change to us kids was a yellow circle around the Bat-symbol but, far more importantly, the stories changed. A subtle aura of genuine menace had re-entered the comfortable and absurdly abstract world of Gotham City.

The “New Look” Batman debuted in Detective Comics #327 and changed the shape of the industry, but as part of the makeover the increasingly fantastical Martian Manhunter was no longer welcome in his first home. In a rare move for the time, former Bat-Editor Jack Schiff, who was taking J’onzz with him to his new post, opted to shake up everything and end the era in style. Detective Comics #326 (April 1964) saw ‘The Death of John Jones, Detective’ with the veteran cop dispatched to investigate the theft of The Idol-Head of Diabolu to discover the outré relic is actually a terrifying portal to countless trans-dimensional terrors. When it transforms its purloiner into a deadly menace, it also unleashes a dreadful beast which apparently kills the valiant cop before Manhunter can end the twin threats. However. In the aftermath the unleashed Idol-Head is lost, but swears to unleash a new menace at every first full moon, forcing the Manhunter to surrender his human identity and leave Middletown, determined to track down the mystic menace whatever the cost…

The pioneering Silver Age superhero moved to House of Mystery from #143, June 1964 – finally getting to feature on the covers – where, in keeping with the title and context of his new home, he became a wandering monster-hunter.

But don’t panic, chums, Zook came with him…

J’onzz’ new adventures began as the Idol disgorged ‘The Giant-Maker’, a beast that mutated men – and poor Zook – into rampaging colossi and freed the wicked wizard Malador from millennia of bondage until Manhunter stops the dual dangers, whilst one full moon later in HoM #144 the peripatetic skull opened a voracious spacewarp sucking people into ‘The Weird World of Gilgana’ before J’onzz plunged in to seal the breach. Next month revealed the ‘Secret of the Purple People’ as the Idol allowed metamorphic Venomee to ravage Egypt until Zook and the Martian stopped them, and #146 saw the weary wanderers find and lose the Diabolu head to fantastic cat-beast Aroo but still save Earth from life-sucking, monstrous Chulko in ‘The Doom Shadow’…

In #147 the Idol vomits forth living, malevolent musical instruments to mesmerise humans as ‘The Orchestra of Doom!’, whilst #148 unleashes ‘The Beings in the Color Rings’ to warp reality in ghastly ways. An unwary beachcomber becomes ‘The Man-Thing That Unearthed Secrets’ in #149, changing into a succession of incredible creatures compulsively retrieving lost mystic artefacts, before #150 finds artist’s brushes ensorcelled and permitted to craft ‘The Supernatural Masterpieces!’ with calamitous results. Then, ‘The Doom from Two Worlds’ splits J’onzz and Zook as the Martian confronts horrors in a trans-dimensional nightmare world whilst his pal is left to defend Earth from a rapacious fire-demon prior to HoM #152’s‘Iwangis – Creature King’ spotlighting a brutal stone giant leading an army of monsters against humankind…

There’s a brief busman’s holiday in #153 as Professor Hugo again rears his outlandish, honkin’ big head to awaken and enslave ‘The Giants Who Slept 1,000,000 Years’ and precipitate an orgy of destruction and profit, whilst in #154 convict Orry Kane uses a stolen magic looking-glass to manifest ‘The Mirror Martian Manhunter’ – a distorted, devilish doppelganger requiring the Manhunter to exercise wits as well as his powers to exorcise it…

Diabolu’s Idol-Head returned in #155, unleashing ‘The Giant Genie of Gensu’ to grant the wishes of evil men, but again comic book fashions were changing and the Manhunter was about to be relegated to a B-Feature once more. In the mid-Sixties, the whole world went crazy for costumed crusaders and every comic book publisher keenly sought new ways to repackage an extremely exciting yet intrinsically limited concept. Perhaps its ultimate expression came with the creation of teenaged everyman Robby Reed who battled crime and disaster in his little town with the aid of a fantastic wonder-tool in Dial H for Hero.

Taking the lead spot from House of Mystery #156 (January 1966), this outlandish new hero pushed J’onzz into the back half for ‘Look What Happened to J’onn J’onzz!’: a position he maintained until #173 (March-April 1968) when the comic book disappeared for a few months to re-emerge as DC’s first of many modern anthological supernatural mystery titles addressing the global growth of interest in actual horror stories. In that truncated tale a sinister snake-beast almost absorbs and consumes the Martian (irony, or what?), whilst in #157 Professor Hugo is back to mesmerise and humiliate his alien nemesis in ‘Manhunter, World’s Greatest Clown!’ HoM #158 ended the long-running and increasingly tired saga by revealing ‘The Origin of the Diabolu Idol-Head’ after plunging Manhunter back in time to Ancient Babylonia where he finally learns how to destroy it, after which J’onzz marked the occasion by returning to his roots and foiling an invasion by ‘The Devil Men of Pluto’ in #159.

Apparently helpless against rising trends, ‘Manhunter’s New Secret Identity’ debuted in #160 (July 1966) with the hero tapping into the global superspy fad and assuming the identity of a glamorous international playboy and suspected criminal to penetrate the inner echelons of sinister secret society Vulture. Soon he is popping up all over Europe, hot on the trail of mysterious leader Faceless (AKA Mr. V) and forced to undertake increasingly suspect tasks and missions threatening to compromise his ethics and integrity if not end his life…

He was almost immediately rumbled in #161 when ‘The Unmasking of Marco Xavier!’ sees him battling Vulture’s top op Abba Sulkar with only a tragic accident saving his stolen face. A devious courier mission for Xavier in #162 allows Manhunter to raid ‘The Lair of Mr. V!’ but Faceless proves to be a truly capable foe who easily eludes him, whilst in #163 an alliance between Vulture and a fugitive Mercurian results in the Martian becoming ‘The Doomed Captive!’ … until the hero’s brains triumph over the bad guys’ brawn and super-science. In #164 the undercover agent is placed in an impossible position when Faceless orders a hit on J’onn J’onzz and expects his playboy pal to carry it out. ‘Marco vs. Manhunter!’ offered a bewildering display of the hero’s disguise dexterity, whilst the next devilish ploy of Professor Hugo provides an unwelcome break as the rogue genius uses nuclear blackmail and atomic science to transform the hero into ‘The Deadly Martian’…

When the infiltration campaign had begun Zook was abandoned in America, but he pops up again in #166 after Marco is dispatched to the US to secure the secret of turning men into monsters in ‘Vulture’s Crime Goliaths!’ On arrival back in Europe, Faceless tasks his playboy pawn with ingratiating himself to the enemy. ‘Marco Xavier, Manhunter’s Ally!’ proves to be a complex and ultimately unrewarding mission whereafter Zook calls J’onzz back home to tackle the alien predations of ‘Thantos – the 3-in-1 Man!’ (#168) before ‘The Manhunter Monster!’ has our hero infiltrate Mr. V’s secret lab before becoming stuck in the form of the gang’s latest horrific bio-weapon…

Events in the real world were starting to affect comic books, and after #170’s ‘The Martian Double-Cross!’ – which saw “Xavier” wrongly deduce Manhunter’s weakness and only narrowly survive his failure – House of Mystery underwent radical remodelling to display a slightly darker tone. The writing was on the wall for exuberant, angst-free adventurers. With #171, Zook was back for good (or not) and in ‘The Martian Marauders’ the odd couple faced an expeditionary force of invaders from the Martian’s homeworld, before #172 found the hero mind-swapped and prisoner in the body of a Vulture assassin even as the killer wore his alien frame in ‘Manhunter’s Stolen Identity!’

In those distant days series ended abruptly, without fanfare and often in the middle of something – and such was the fate of Robby Reed – but for J’onn J’onzz at least, HoM#173 (March/April 1968) managed – admittedly in an abbreviated manner – to wrap up the undercover agent’s mission in the climactic and explosive ‘So You’re Faceless!’…

And that was that. The series was gone, the market was abandoning Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction, and on the horizon a host of war, western, barbarian and horror comics were emerging…

Exciting, fun, engaging and silly in equal amounts (heck, even I couldn’t resist a jibe or too and I genuinely revere these daft, nostalgia-soaked gems) J’onn J’onzz has been subsequently re-imagined many times since these innocent odysseys first ran, but never with the clearcut, unsophisticated, welcoming charm displayed here.

Although absolutely dated and definitely formulaic, these complex yet uncomplicated adventures are drenched in charm and still sparkle with innocent wit and wonder. Perhaps not to everyone’s taste nowadays, these “retro” exploits of the Manhunter from Mars are still an all-ages buffet of fun, thrills and action no fan should miss.
© 1962-1968, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1920 comics veteran Ken Bald (Dark Shadows, Dr. Kildare, Captain America, Sub-Mariner, Blonde Phantom, The Destroyer, Namora, Sun Girl, Miss America, Millie the Model, Patsy Walker) was born, joined by Italian strip star Dino Battaglia (Mark Fury, Till Eulenspiegel, Inspector Coke) in 1923 and Ziggy strip creator Tom Wilson in 1931.

In 1923 Otto Mesmer’s first strip of animated movie icon Felix the Cat premiered, as did Tom Armstrong’s still-going-strong strip phenomenon Marvin today in 1982. But the date also marks the deaths of Dutch cartoonist “WiBo” AKA Wim Boost (Volkskrant) in 2005 and Frank and Ernest creator Bob Thaves in 2006.

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Harley Quinn and the Gotham Girls


By Paul D. Storrie, Jennifer Graves & J. Bone, with Brad Rader, Rick Burchett, Patricia Mulvihill, Phil Felix & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-9971-2 (TPB) 978-1-4012-9972-9 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Harley Quinn wasn’t supposed to be a star – or even an actual comic book character. As soon became apparent, however, the manic minx always had her own astoundingly askew and off-kilter ideas on the matter… and any other topic you could name: ethics, friendship, ordnance, coffee…

Created by Paul Dini & Bruce Timm, Batman: The Animated Series aired in the US from September 5th 1992 to September 15th 1995. Ostensibly for kids, the breakthrough TV cartoon revolutionised everybody’s image of the Dark Knight and immediately began feeding back into the print iterations, leading to some of the absolute best comics tales in the hero’s many decades of existence.

Employing a timeless visual style dubbed “Dark Deco”, the show mixed elements from all eras and aspects of the character and, without diluting power, tone or mood of the premise, reshaped the grim avenger and his extended team into a wholly accessible, thematically memorable form that the youngest of readers could eagerly enjoy, whilst adding shades of exuberance, sophistication and sheer panache that only most devout and obsessive Batmaniac could possibly object to…

Harley was initially the Clown Prince of Crime’s slavishly adoring, abuse-enduring assistant in Joker’s Favor (airing on September 11th 1992) wherein she instantly captured the hearts and minds of millions of viewers. From there on she began popping up in the licensed comic book and – always stealing the show – soon graduated to mainstream DC continuity.

Along the circuitous way, Harley – AKA Dr. Harleen Quinzel – developed an outrageous support network of sorts including living bioweapon Poison Ivy and settled into a bizarre love/hate relationship with some of Gotham’s other female felons.

After a period bopping around the DCU she was re-imagined as part of the company’s vast post-Flashpoint, major makeover and appeared as part of a new iteration of The Suicide Squad. Now with numerous motion picture, TV animation and live action small screen presence all in play, let’s look back at one particularly fruitful and significant phase, At heart, Harley’s always been a cartoon glamour-puss, with big, bold, primal emotions and only the merest acknowledgement of how reality works…

Amongst the plethora of comic books generated by the original cartoon show was this smartly sassy romp featuring those aforementioned crime cuties as well some mismatched if not openly antithetical law enforcers. Crafted by Paul D. Storrie, Jennifer Graves & J. Bone, 5-issue miniseries Gotham Girls was released between October 2002 and February 2003: opening with ‘Cat’s Paw’ as super-thief Selena Kyle undertakes a commission to steal something very nasty from agricultural conglomerate Zehn Chemicals.

The Feline Felon’s still determined to open a lion sanctuary with her fee and doesn’t appreciate when the supposedly simple caper is interrupted by juvenile do-gooder Batgirl. However, as they trade kicks, punches and quips, overworked, under-appreciated and overlooked GCPD detective Renee Montoya is taking a closer look at the supposed victims and sees something dirty in the company…

Then, as Bat & Cat ferociously but inconclusively throw down all over town, the masterminds paying for the heist make their move, and it becomes clear that there’s a lot going on that needs to be properly unearthed…

‘Ivy League’ exposes murderous eco-terrorist Pamela Lillian Isley as bankrolling the caper, claiming justifiable and benevolent motives to reclaim her own property from unscrupulous, world-endangering corporate creeps. However, because her bestest pal Harley is as erratic and excitable as ever, a potential Bat/Cat/Plantgirl/Dingbat alliance is thwarted by mutual mistrust and excessive, utterly unnecessary violence. Montoya, meanwhile, is diligently following clues, interviewing greedy biologists and uncovering something at rival agri-company Kayle Corporation…

The fast-moving melee ends in leafy Robinson Park, with Batgirl holding the stolen chemical soup, until ‘Harlequinade’ sees manic, attention-starved Quinn pull a martial masterstroke, delivering the bio-booty to her disturbingly abusive gal-pal and a heavy defeat to Catwoman & Batgirl. Naturally, that’s just when solid police practice explosively brings Montoya to their secret lair for penultimate power struggle ‘I Carry a Badge!’…

Brilliant deduction and a standard-issue firearm aren’t much use against supervillains and giant carnivorous vines though, so it’s a good thing Batgirl & Catwoman have both independently tracked Harley & Ivy. With action amped to maximum, good girls and bad girls clash yet again, and sides are finally drawn for a climactic conclusion, with frustrated cop and masked vigilante hero united at last and resolved to end the chaos in ‘Bat Attitude’.

Of course, that means not just Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn are going to jail…

A superbly riotous rollercoaster ride for kids of all ages, each chapter also deftly explores the interior life, history and motivations of successive stars; offering canny character building and definition most mature-reading tales would be proud to deliver.

Coloured by Patricia Mulvihill, lettered by Phil Felix and with additional layouts by Rick Burchett and Brad Rader, this classy, classically cops ‘n’ robbers riot plays very much like a 1940s movie chapter-play – albeit with outrageous gags, biting dialogue and a blend of black humour and bombastic action. A frantic, frenetic hoot, this is an absolute delight, well worth the price of admission and an irresistible treasure to be enjoyed over and over again.
© 2002, 2020 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1927, Charlton Comics editor and Popeye illustrator George Wildman was born, as  was letterer Cory Petit in 1976; both all-star creators Lee Bermejo (Batman: Noel, Lex Luthor: Man of Steel, Rorschach) and Leinil Francis Yu (Superman: Birthright, X-Men, Wolverine) in 1977 and Graphic Novelist Nate Powell (March, The Silence of Our Friends, Swallow Me Whole) in 1978.

In 1933 today Milt Caniff’s Dickie Dare strip launched, and Neal Adam’s Ben Casey folded, albeit in 1966. Ten years later Mickey Finn ended, having run continuously since Frank Leonard began it in 1936.

In 2000 we lost Lars Jansson, brother of Tove and continuer of the magnificent Moomin strip (1954 to 1975 in The Evening News and sundry other newspapers). In 2003 controversial Italian comics maestro Guido Crepax (Valentina, Emanuelle, Anita, The Man from Harlem) died, followed three years later by countryman Mario Faustinelli (Asso di Picche, The Adventures of Topo Gigio, Kolosso).

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Roy Crane’s Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips volume 1


By Roy Crane, Les Turner & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-161-9 (Album HC)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Amongst the many cartoon and comics anniversaries this year there are household names still with us (albeit in exceedingly altered forms) and tragically masterpieces of the form that have faded from popular memory, even though their influence remains in every panel we might peruse…

Modern comics evolved from newspaper gag and comic strips. These pictorial features were, until relatively recently, utterly ubiquitous and hugely popular with the public and highly prized by publishers who used them as an irresistible sales weapon to guarantee and increase circulation and profits. It’s virtually impossible for us today to understand the overwhelming power of the comic strip in America (and wider world) from the Great Depression to the end of World War II. With no television, broadcast radio far from universal, and movie shows at best a weekly treat for most folk, household entertainment was mostly derived from the strip sections of daily and especially Sunday Newspapers. “The Funnies” were the most common recreation for millions who were well served by a fantastic variety and incredible quality of adventures and exploits.

From the very start humour was paramount; hence the terms Funnies and “Comics”, and from these gag and stunt beginnings – a blend of silent movie slapstick, outrageous fantasy and the vaudeville shows – evolved a thoroughly entertaining mutant hybrid: Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs. Debuting on April 14th 1924, Washington Tubbs II was a comedic gag-a-day vehicle not much different from family favourite Harold Teen (by Crane’s friend and contemporary Carl Ed). Depiction of pretty girls was a key component of the daily show, and when it launched, Tubbs was a diminutive yet ambitious young store-clerk. However, gradually the strip moved into mock-heroics, then through cosy, non-confrontational action, to become a full-blown, light-hearted, rip-roaring adventure series… after the introduction of ancestral he-man and prototype moody swashbuckler Captain Easy in the landmark episode for 6th May, 1929. Incidentally Wash Tubbs ran until 1949, at which time it merged into Crane’s spin-off feature: the previously Sunday-only Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune.

As the daily episodes had become ever-more exotic and thrill-packed, the globetrotting little dynamo had shown a clear need for a sidekick who could believably handle the strenuous combat side of things, and thus – in the middle of a Europe-set war yarn – Wash liberated a mysterious fellow American from a jail cell and history was made…

Before long the mismatched pair were travelling companions, hunting treasure, fighting thugs and rescuing a bevy of startlingly comely maidens in distress. The bluff, two-fisted, surly, comprehensively capable, utterly dependable, down-on-his-luck “Southern Gen’leman” was something not seen before in comics: a raw, square-jawed hunk played completely straight rather than as the buffoon or music hall foil of such classic serials as Hairsbreadth Harry or Desperate Desmond.

Moreover, Crane’s seductively simple blend of cartoon exuberance and stylish design was a far more accessible. exuberant and powerful medium for action storytelling than the rather static illustrative style favoured by artists like Hal Foster: just beginning to make waves on the groundbreaking new Tarzan Sunday page. Tubbs & Easy were as exotic and thrilling as the Ape-Man, but rattled along like the surreal and tempestuous Popeye, full of vim, vigour and vinegar, as attested to by a close look at the early work of the would-be cartoonists who followed the strip with avid intensity: Floyd Gottfredson, Milton Caniff, Jack Kirby, Will Eisner and especially young Joe Shuster…

After a couple of abortive attempts starring his little hero, Crane bowed to the inevitable and created instead a full-colour Sunday page dedicated to his increasingly popular hero-for-hire.

Captain Easy debuted on 30th July 1933 (Heppy Buthday, Suh!), in wild-&-woolly escapades set prior to his first fateful rendezvous with Tubbs.

This first sublime archival volume (long-overdue for rerelease and a digital edition) begins with the sullen mercenary undertaking a mission for the Chinese government… spying on the city of ‘Gungshi.’ In that heyday of popular exploration and dashing-aviator exploits, the bold solo flight over the Himalayas to Chinese Turkestan was stirring enough, but when Easy then infiltrates a hidden citadel, it heralds the beginning of a rollercoaster romp with sword-wielding Mongols, sultry houris, helpless dancing girls, fabulous beasts and wicked bandits. The heady, intoxicating dramatic brew captivated entire families across the planet, week after addictive week…

With an entire page and vibrant colours to play with, Crane’s imagination ran wild and his fabulous visual concoctions achieved a timeless immediacy that made each page a unified piece of sequential art.

The effect and influence of Crane’s pages can be seen in so many strips since; especially the works of close-contemporaries such as Hergé and giants-in-waiting like Charles Schulz.

These pages were a clearly as much of joy to create as to read. In fact, the cited reason for Crane surrendering the Sunday strip to his assistant Les Turner in 1937 was controlling NEA Syndicate’s abrupt and arbitrary demand that all its strips be henceforward produced in a rigid panel-structure to facilitate them being cut up and re-pasted as local editors dictated.

Crane simply walked away, concentrating on the daily feature. In 1943, he quit the Syndicate to create aviation adventure strip Buz Sawyer.

At the end of the initial blockbuster, cinematic epic Easy is a hero to the people of Gungshi, if not its aristocracy, who plot to oust him via the subtlest of means. The second adventure ‘The Slave Girl’ opened on 21st January 1934, depicting the occidental hero bankrupted in saving the beautiful Rose Petal from the auction block: a chivalrous gesture leading to war with the rival city of Kashno, and a brutally hilarious encounter with South Sea pirates…

In an era where ethnic stereotyping and casual racism were commonplace and acceptable – if not actually the mandatory shortcuts of social interaction – the introduction of a vile, unscrupulous Yank as the exploitative villain was – and remains – a surprising delight.

Rambling Jack is every inch the greedy “ugly American” of later, more informed decades, and by contrasting Easy’s wholesome quest to make his fortune with the venal explorer’s rapacious ruthlessness, Crane makes a telling point for the folks back home. It also makes for great reading, as Chinese bandits also enter the fray, determined to plunder both cities and everybody else in their path. Nevertheless, with the help of a lost British flyer Easy is finally victorious, but on returning to his Chinese employers he spots something whilst flying over the Himalayas that radically derails his plans…

‘The Sunken City’ is an early masterpiece of comics fiction, with Easy recruiting cockney comedy stooge ‘Arry Pippy, a demobbed British Army cook, to help reconnoitre a drowned metropolis submerged for centuries in a hidden inland sea, and one he had he had spotted from the air only through sheer chance. Of course, simply to get there the pair must trek through rampant jungles, survive blowpipe-wielding cannibals and avoid the greatest threat our valiant rogue has ever faced…

If I’ve given the impression that this has all been grim-‘n’-gritty turmoil & tension thus far, please forgive me: Roy Crane was an utterly irrepressible gag-man and his enchanting chapter-play serial abounds with breezy light-hearted banter, hilarious situations and outright farce… a sure-fire formula cinema directors still plunder to this day. Easy is the Indiana Jones, Flynn (The Librarian) Carsen and Jack (Romancing the Stone) Cotton of his day and inarguably blazed the trail for all of them and whoever I’ve left out… even Lara Croft…

In a deep-sea diver’s suit, Easy & ‘Arry examine piscine wonders and trace the submerged grandeur of the lost city, encountering some of the most magical and fanciful sea beasts ever recorded in comics, before literally striking gold. Typically, when more cannibals attack those dredged up treasures are lost and Easy finds himself captive and betrothed to the most hideous witch-hag imaginable…

Risking everything, the desperate treasure-seekers make a break for it only to re-encounter ‘The Pirates’ (April 14th – July 7th 1935), but before they get too far the husband-hungry sorceress and her faithful person-eaters come after Easy, leading to a brutal, murderous conclusion…

After years in the Orient, Easy & Pippy succumb to a hankering for less dangerous company and make their way to Constantinople and Europe. Sadly, trouble is never far from the moody mercenary and in ‘The Princess’ (14th July – December 1st 1935), his gentlemanly instincts compel him to rescue a beautiful woman from the unwelcome attentions of munitions magnate Count Heyloff, a gallant gesture that embroils our hero in a manufactured war between two minor nations. This tale addressed contemporary American sentiments that another world conflict was brewing, and it’s obvious that Crane’s opinion was the deeply held common conviction that the whole international unrest was the result of rich men’s greedy manipulations and machinations. Just like today…

Dark, bittersweet and painfully foreboding, this yarn sees Easy become the focus of Heyloff’s vengeance, and the sum total Airforce for tiny underdog nation Nikkateena in their bitter struggle for survival against the equally-duped and deceived country of Woopsydasia. Crane kept the combat chronicle light but on occasion his true feelings showed through in some of the most trenchant anti-war art ever seen.

This superb hardback and colossal initial collection is the perfect means of discovering or rediscovering Roy Crane’s rip-snorting, pulse-pounding, exotically racy adventure pioneer. The huge pages in this volume (almost 14½ inches by 10½ inches, or 210 x 140 mm for the metric crowd dominating global measuring these days) also offer a fascinating, informative introductory biography of Crane by historian Jeet Heer; a glowing testimonial from Charles Schulz; contemporary promotional material, extra drawings and sketches, plus a fascinating feature explaining how pages were coloured in those long-ago days before computers and other jumped-up adding machines…

This is primal comics storytelling of the very highest quality: unforgettable, spectacular and utterly irresistible. These tales rank alongside the best of Hergé, Tezuka, Eisner and Kirby, and led inexorably to the greatest creations of all of them. You have the chance to experience the strips that inspired the giants of our art form, and celebrate the achievements, so how can you possibly resist?
Captain Easy Strips © 2010 United Features Syndicate, Inc. This edition © 2010 Fantagraphics Books, all other material © the respective copyright holders. All rights reserved.

Today in 1892 Alfred Harmsworth launched landmark British comics storypaper The Wonder, sharing the date with DC Thomson’s The Beano, debuting in 1938. In 1955, Ken Reid’s hilarious timeless feature Grandpa began in The Beano. Of course you already know Captain Easy launched on July 30th 1933.

Births on this day include colourist Tom Ziuko in 1955; Turkish cartoonist Turhan Selçuk and French author/artist Hervé Darmenton AKA “Achde” (Fort Braillard, Woker, Les Damnés de la route, CRS=Détresse, Lucky Luke ) in 1961 and illustrator Chris Sprouse (Tom Strong, Supreme, Hammerlocke, The Rocketeer, Legion of Super-Heroes) in 1966.

Today in 1992 Joe Shuster died.

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The Shadow: Blood & Judgment


By Howard Chaykin with Ken Bruzenak, Alex Wald & various (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-327-8 (TPB/Digital edition) (978-0-9302-8916-4 (DC comics 1989 TPB

This book contains Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect and to piss you off.

I’ve been a fan of The Shadow ever since I was a kid in the 1960s, picking up a couple of sixpenny paperbacks as a kid in my local Woolworth’s. Over so many decades I followed various comic and screen interpretations with mixed feelings but grudging general acceptance. However, when Howard Chaykin had a crack at the venerable trenchcoated crime-crusher at the height of the turbulent game-changing 1980’s, I nearly blew a gasket. I was appalled.

And that was the point.

Chaykin has for his entire career lovingly cultivated his reputation as an iconoclast and cultural bombast over many years, and the four issue miniseries from 1987 collected here certainly ruffled a few feathers – those of severe unrepentant traditionalist me included.

As originally disseminated in the days before comic books, The Shadow gave thrill-hungry fans their measured doses of extraordinary excitement via cheaply produced periodical novels dubbed Pulps (because of the low-grade paper they were printed on) and over mood-drenched airwaves via his own radio show. Pulps were the TV of their day, published in their hundreds of different titles every month, ranging from the truly excellent to the pitifully dire, and catered for every style and genre. However, for exotic adventure lovers there were two characters who outshone all others. The Superman of his day was Doc Savage, Man of Bronze, whilst the premiere dark, relentless creature of the night dispensing terrifying grim justice was our mysterious slouch-hatted hero.

Originally the radio series Detective Story Hour (adapting stand-alone prose yarns from Street & Smith publication Detective Story Magazine) used a suitably spooky-voiced narrator (most famously Orson Welles, although he was preceded by James LaCurto & Frank Readick Jr.) to introduce each tale. He was dubbed “the Shadow”, and from the start on July 31st 1930, he was more popular than the stories he introduced. Talking about soon evolved into participation and The Shadow became into a proactive hero solving crimes and mysteries and, on April 1st 1931, the dark Detective debuted in his own pulp series written by the incredibly prolific Walter Gibson under house-pseudonym Maxwell Grant. On September 26th 1937 the radio show officially became The Shadow with the eerie tag-line “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of Men? The Shadow knows!”…

Gibson-as-Grant wrote 282 of 325 novels over the next two decades, published twice a month. The series spawned comic books, seven movies, a newspaper strip and all the merchandising paraphernalia you’d expect of a superstar brand. The pulp series ended in 1949, although many novels have been written (by Gibson and others) since 1963, when a pulp fantasy revival gripped America, generating reprinted classic stories and a run of new adventures as paperback novels. Then he was gone again but the mesmerising master of menace always seemed to be lurking in the background…

From June 17th 1940 The Shadow and his covert cohort of minions starred in a newspaper strip by Vernon Greene and – when comic books took off – he won his own four-colour title. It ran 101 issues spanning March 1940 – September 1949. Between 1964-1965 Archie Comics published a controversial contemporary version under their Radio/Mighty Comics imprint, written by Robert Bernstein and Jerry Siegel, illustrated by John Rosenberger and Paul Reinman. In 1973, DC acquired the rights and produced a captivating but brief series of classic comic exploits unlike any other superhero title then on the stands.

DC periodically revived their comic book iterations of the venerable vigilante and in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen tasked one of the industry’s most controversial and popular creators with reviving the pre-eminent mystery man of all time. Fresh from an awe-inspiring, inspirational and transformative run on his satirical creation American Flagg, Howard Chaykin returned to DC to shake up everything with an interpretation which offended fans, purists (still including me) and franchise-owners Conde Nast, but which ultimately proved to be just the medicine the property needed to become relevant again.

That crucial year 1949 is the embarkation point for this flashy, savage, witty and utterly captivating updating. This is not a reboot. Chaykin was extremely careful to accept and utilise those decades of established canon, deftly accommodating old material whilst infilling information gaps by scrutinising world history and tacitly accepting that a do-gooder who exploited and expended his own agents whilst kidnapping, brainwashing and slaughtering the bad guys wasn’t what most people would consider a hero…

Devised and delivered as a glittering, frenetic avalanche of graphic and text material (spectacularly made comprehensible by the calligraphic skill of lettering wizard Ken Bruzenak and the understated colour-palette of Alex Wald) the story opens with a series of increasingly brutal murders. It doesn’t take long to connect the victims: old people from all walks of life rumoured to have worked for an old urban legend known as The Shadow…

That mystery manhunting vigilante vanished in 1949, abandoning his grim, fanatical crusade to destroy criminals. Now (for which read 1987) a hidden mastermind is systematically eliminating every surviving member of his former organization. Before long, a figure comes out of the closeted east, easily slipping past Communist China’s “Bamboo Curtain” and returning to the blighted, benighted USA with a new band of striking followers in tow…

Chaykin even had the chutzpah to provide the eternal Man of Mystery with a Real Origin, something he never really had before as the murder-marathon unfolded but soon and suddenly – amidst a broiling sea of sex, perversion and increasingly violent death – The Shadow is back in style and in full force. Dealing out bloody justice to petty thugs in search of the true mastermind, the desperate race against time sees an impossibly young, still vital Lamont Cranston reunite with his surviving agents to track down his oldest enemy and thwart a deadly plan to bring about nuclear annihilation.

However, as arrogant and officious as ever, the now-unmasked master manipulator is probably in more danger from the elderly colleagues he abandoned than the gun-toting punks and maniacs dogging his smartly-shod heels. Inevitably, as chaos escalates and bodies keep dropping, “Cranston” tracks down his unseen nemesis and – with his own sons in attendance and learning the ropes and family traditions on the job – proves again how the weed of crime bears bitter – but so very fragile – fruit…

Bonus features include a cover gallery, Marc Guggenheim’s Foreword ‘Looking Back on the Shadow’ plus text closer ‘The Light Behind The Shadow’: an interview with Chaykin and Joe Orlando which first appeared in the 1987 trade paperback collection.

I don’t know why I used to dislike this book so much: Although I still feel the proper milieu for the character is the iconic era of mobsters, militarists and madmen (by which I mean the 1930s and 1940s, not right here right now) I see what Chaykin’s getting at. Those threats and motivations were common enough in the Eighties and even more so nowadays.

Perhaps the author’s trademark trick of confronting misogyny, racism and suppressed sexuality by seemingly advocating them just wore a bit thin when applied to such a treasured old friend. There’s certainly a disquieting amount of adult themes, kinky sex and graphic violence on offer. With sufficient distance, though, I now must honestly pronounce this a terrific thrill-ride; stylish and compelling, if a little “in your face” and “on the nose”… Enough readers must have liked it back then: Blood and Judgment spawned a fascinating follow-up series (by Andy Helfer, Bill Sienkiewicz, Kyle Baker and others) before DC reverted to The Shadow Strikes: a series safely restored to its natural pre-war time period.

Out of print from 1991 until Dynamite picked up the option this is a vital and vigorous read which inspired some of today’s very best creators, and acts as a perfect introduction to the character. You can – and should – complement the experience by tracking down DC’s first experiment with the character, partially collected as The Private Files of the Shadow – and Dynamite’s serial continuations and new edition of The Shadow: Hitler’s Astrologer.

After all, a crime fighter this durable must have something to him…
The Shadow ® & © 2012 Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. ™ & © Conde Nast. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1954 writer/colourist/inker/Digital Chameleon co-founder Lovern Kindzierski (Shame, Lunatik, Agents of Law, Black Widow) was born, followed a year to the day later by wonderful, gifted, tragically-short-lived Dave Stevens (The Rocketeer, Tarzan, The Bettie Pages); comic bok letterer Rus Wooton in 1970 and devastatingly brilliant writer Gail Simone (Birds of Prey, The Movement, Villains United!, Secret Six, Lara Croft, The All-New Atom, Welcome to Tranquility, Wonder Woman, Red Sonja, Batgirl, Uncanny X-Men) in 1974.

Today in 1985 Jimmy Johnson’s still-running, ever-kvetching, surreal domestic commentary romcom strip Arlo and Janis began.

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Superman The Golden Age Sundays volume 2 1946-1949


By Alvin Schwartz, Wayne Boring & various (IDW/Library of American Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-63140-109-1 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times..

After years wallowing in obscurity most of Superman’s newspaper strip exploits were at last made available to aficionados and the curious newcomer in tomes such as this one, compiled under the auspices of the Library of American Comics. Sadly, that bounty has dried up and the books are becoming as rare as the original strips. Hopefully the whole canon will one day make it into digital editions. Until then though, we fortunate ones can share what we have, like this epic transitional selection seeing the close of a Golden era in advance of a fresh, bold, daringly Atomic Age…

The comic book industry would be utterly unrecognisable without Superman. Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s bold and unprecedented invention was fervidly adopted by a desperate and joy-starved generation and quite literally gave birth to a genre if not an actual art form. The Man of Tomorrow was shamelessly copied, adapted by countless inspired writers and artists for numerous publishers, spawning an incomprehensible army of imitators and variations within three years of his summer 1938 debut.

Yes, 88 YEARS… and still counting!

The intoxicating blend of breakneck, breathtaking action and visceral wish-fulfilment expressed by the newborn Action Ace swiftly expanded to encompass cops-&-robbers crimebusting, socially reformist dramas, science fiction and fantasy, romance and comedy; and – once war in Europe and the East engulfed America – absorbed and reinforced patriotic relevance for a host of gods, heroes and monsters, all dedicated to profit through exuberant, eye-popping excess and dashing derring-do. Superman was master of the world and whilst transforming and dictating the shape of the fledgling funnybook industry, relentlessly expanded into all areas of entertainment media.

We might think of the Cleveland boys’ iconic invention as the epitome and acme of comic strip creation, but the truth is that very soon after his debut in Action Comics #1 the Man of Steel was a fictional multimedia monolith in the same league as Sherlock Holmes, Popeye and Tarzan. Diehard comics fans regard our purest, most enduring icons in primarily graphic narrative terms, but the likes of Batman, Spider-Man, The Hulk and their hyperkinetic ilk long ago outgrew four-colour origins to become fully mythologized modern media creatures, instantly recognised in mass markets across all platforms and age ranges. Far more people have viewed or heard the Man of Steel than have ever read his comics.

His globally syndicated newspaper strips reached untold millions, and by the time of his 20th anniversary – at the very start of what we know as the Silver Age of Comics – he had been a thrice-weekly radio serial regular and starred in a series of astounding animated cartoons, as well as two films and a novel by George Lowther. Superman was a perennial wellspring for toys, game, puzzle and apparel manufacturers and had just ended his first smash live-action television serial. In his future were many more shows, a stage musical, a ton of blockbuster movies and near-seamless succession of games, bubblegum cards and TV cartoons beginning with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966 and continuing ever since. Even superdog Krypto has got in on the all screens act. However, in his formative years the moving picture option was simply an expensive novelty for most. The Action Ace achieved true mass market fame through a different medium: one not that far removed from his print origins.

Although pretty much a spent force these days, for most of the last century newspaper strips were the Holy Grail American cartoonists/graphic narrative storytellers hungered for. Syndicated across the country – and frequently the world – they might be seen by millions if not billions of readers and were generally accepted as a more mature and sophisticated form of literature than comic books. At that time it also paid far better, and rightly so. Some of the most enduring and entertaining characters and concepts of all time were created to lure readers from one particular paper to another and many of them grew to be part of a global culture. Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Blondie, Charlie Brown and so many more escaped humble, even tawdry newsprint origins to become meta-real: existing in the minds of earthlings from Albuquerque to Zanzibar. Some still do…

Superman was the first comic book character to make that leap; about six months after exploding out of Action Comics. The daily Superman strip launched on 16th January 1939, augmented from November 5th of that year by a full-colour Sunday page. Originally crafted by Siegel & Shuster and their studio (Paul Cassidy, Leo Nowak, Dennis Neville, John Sikela, Ed Dobrotka, Paul J. Lauretta & Wayne Boring), the mammoth task soon required the additional artistic gifts of Jack Burnley and ancillary writers Whitney Ellsworth, Jack Schiff & Alvin Schwartz. The McClure Syndicate feature ran uninterrupted until May 1966, and at its peak appeared in over 300 daily and 90 Sunday newspapers with a combined readership surpassing 20 million. For most of the post-war years, Boring & Stan Kaye limned the spectacular Sundays (latterly supplemented by Win Mortimer & Curt Swan). The majority of strips from 1944 to 1958 were written by largely unsung, nigh-forgotten scribe Alvin Schwartz.

Born in 1916, Schwartz was an early maestro of comic books, writing Batman, Superman, Captain Marvel, and for many other titles and companies. Whilst handling the Superman strip he freelanced on Wonder Woman and other superheroes as well as DC’s genre titles such as Tomahawk, Buzzy, A Date with Judy and House of Mystery. After numerous and ever-escalating clashes with new Superman Editor Mort Weisinger, Schwartz quit comics for commercial writing: selling novels, essays, documentaries and docudramas for the National Film Board of Canada. He worked miracles in advertising and market research, developing selling techniques like psychographics and typological identification. A member of the advisory committee to the American Association of Advertising Agencies, he died in 2011.

After too many years wallowing in obscurity most of Superman’s newspaper strip exploits are finally available to aficionados and the curious newcomer in tomes such as this one compiled under the aegis of the Library of American Comics.

Showcasing Schwartz & Boring in their purest prime, these Sundays (numbered as Pages #354 to #520, collectively spanning August 11th 1946 to October 16th 1949) depict an almost omnipotent Man of Steel in domestically-framed tales of emotional dilemma, pedestrian criminality and surreal situations rather than muscle-flexing bombast, faux angst and bludgeoning action. Here humour, wit, mystery, fashion, satire and wonder reign supreme.

Following affable appreciation of the creators and the times in Mark Waid’s ‘An Introduction’ and a selection of contemporaneous Superman comic book covers in ‘A Wayne Boring Gallery’ the weekly wonderment recommences in all its vibrant glory. Sadly, the serials are untitled, so you’ll just have to manage with my meagre synopses of individual yarns…

Kicking off is a beguiling domestic dilemma as Lois Lane is overwhelmed looking after a neighbour’s boy whilst preparing to collect her sternly formidable, imminently visiting Aunt Matilda. Snowed under mounting physical and mental loads, she ropes in Superman to backstop her, only to discover there are many tasks – like baking a cake whilst watching a boisterous brat – that even the miraculous Man of Steel cannot manage…

Next up and beginning with Page 358 (September 8th 1946) the Action Ace faces criminal mastermind Tom Catt who plunders Metropolis in “Curiosity Crimes” dependent on the victims’ own innate nosiness. After a cascade of cat & mouse clashes the cunning crook ultimately falls because he didn’t follow his own advice about obtrusive inquiry and foolhardy felines…

More distracting nonsense results after social thinktank The Skeptics prove by rational debate that Superman doesn’t exist and seek to legally end the fraud being perpetrated upon the world. It takes a number of impossible tasks diligently performed by our hero before the cranky coots are convinced to change their minds, after which Page 371 (December 8th 1946) briefly returns the Man of Tomorrow to his war years and wish-fulfilling Superman’s Service for Servicemen scheme as he helps demobbed G.I. Steve Kennedy adapt to peacetime, work woes and officious in-laws making life intolerable…

Keeping our frame of reference domestic, a new year and fresh sequence (Page 375, January 5th 1947) saw the invulnerable hero hounded by an indefatigable go-getting salesman from Dynamic Insurance. Elmer Doolittle’s career – and future wedded bliss – depend on selling Superman a policy. Luckily, the goal never actually specified what kind of policy…

March 9th (Page 384) signalled a return to fantastic fantasy as an invisible beast causes havoc in the heartlands and farmers call for help to bring the “Nosuch Animal” to brook. Sadly, when Superman intervenes the unseen terror loses its camouflage gift and is exposed as a living example of a dinosaur… a Paleomatzoball. Moreover, this rampaging colossus loves rough handling and develops a disastrous romantic attachment to the Man of Steel before our embarrassed involuntary swain devises a timely solution to their mutual problem…

The “peace dividend” delivered by the end of the war is scrutinised next as Clark visits Boom Town and sees how a former manufacturing mecca was infiltrated and overrun by mobsters, gamblers and racketeers once the military – and their trustworthy, well-trained police – were transferred elsewhere. When the entrenched thugs begin attacking the municipality’s new law enforcement recruits, the Man of Steel steps up to school the neophytes and ensure crime never pays there again…

Circuses were a big draw and popular pastime of the postwar years and from Page 400 (June 29th) Superman & Lois were lured into that limelight when swindlers targeted Cap’n Tobey’s Mammoth Carnival. When the doddering owner is gulled into promising the world that the Metropolis Marvel is his new top attraction, Superman naturally helps out by showing up, but his good deed only allows a cartel of gangsters to use his scheduled performances as opportunities to try new ways to assassinate the Action Ace… with no appreciable result…

Next (from 28th August) two more former G.I.’s enlist the Man of Steel in a business venture, hoping his promotion of their new hot dog line (“Teenie Weinies”) will ensure success, Sadly, the enthusiastically spectacular super sales campaign only lands our hero with a lawsuit for restraint of trade when established fast food rivals cry unfair competition against their own brand of “Yankie Frankies”! Ordered to cease and desist, our hero still manages one stellar and out of this world act of promotion before capitulating…

One of the earliest examples of a recurring Silver Age Superman trope comes next as Page 414 (October 5th 1947) sees exotic nuclear radiation (another increasing popular maguffin of the forthcoming Atomic Age) accidentally reduce the mighty Man of Tomorrow to the size and relative age – but thankfully not intellect or emotional development – of an infant. Unable to appear as Clark, “Superbabe” recruits vagabond Edward Benton who resembles his adult self to impersonate Kent until a remedy is found, only to see the double fall for Lois and attempt to steal his civilian life and wed her under false pretences. Unable to operate as hero or tolerate the loss of Lois, the Caped Kryptonian risks a deadly potential cure, sabotages Lois’ wedding day and risks exposing his greatest secret to stop the mad escapade…

After that soap opera scandal carries us over the Holiday season, accidental time travel – beginning with February 22nd 1948’s Page 434 – sees Superman stranded in the past and ensnared by the irresistible wiles of seductive, lethally ambitious Egyptian Queen Cleopatra. Thankfully, former beau Mark Antony is able to break her spell before the Man of Tomorrow returns to today, just in time to foil an impending Martian invasion (May 2nd – July 18th over Pages 444-455) by impersonating an “ordinary human” abducted to their testing labs…

He even acts as a matchmaker for their lonely leader before returning to Earth and his strangest encounter yet after he’s “adopted” by talking dog Angus who needs a safe, secure home for his homeless human orphan kid pal Nicky Nichols. Of course, once he’s over the shock and disbelief, Superman is delighted to provide them and even reunite Nicky with his missing-but-not-dead mother… once he’s stopped every grifting chancer’s exploitative schemes to make money out of the mouthy mutt…

Another extraordinary tyke turns up on Page 467 (October 10th) as radical theorists of The Educational Improvements Association attempt to hothouse a 3-year old prodigy with plenty of weird notions of her own. “Smartypants” is granted absolute freedom to do whatever she wants, with the Man of Steel sworn to make every wish come true. The result is utter anarchy (with unleashed dinosaurs!) and total chaos until the harassed, embattled boffins convene for a swift rethink before resorting to tried-&-trusted rearing methods…

November 28th (Page 474) saw Superman in whimsical mood as he puckishly teaches a rug salesman a lesson by making his smarmy, smug sales patter about magic carpets come true for downtrodden shopper Geoge Paley. Sadly, the prank goes exponentially awry as an ever-escalating war for possession of George’s flying rug breaks out, resulting in violence, loss of livelihood and litigation. Once he’s done settling all the crises he’s sparked, the Action Ace resolves to quit playing practical jokes…

Far-flung fantasy follows from Pages 484 to 493 (February 6th – April 10th 1949) as Superman gathers Amazon jungle flora for the Metropolis Botanical Society and stumbles upon a fabulous golden sword, a potent legend and a long-hidden civilisation in the Lost Valley of Ru. Holding the antique blade, the Man of Steel inadvertently fulfils an ancient prophecy and must marry the socially reforming Queen. That’s not what tyrannical nobles led by Baron Akhar want, and his machinations to thwart the prophecy and marry her himself – as well as the monarch’s embarrassing infatuation with the mighty caped stranger – lead to confusion, crisis and civil war before our hero can fix everything and flee back to the outer world’s relative calm…

The next serialised saga (Pages 494-505, April 17th to July 3rd) offers another human-interest drama given a super-powered spin as, having learned nothing, Superman hires a double to stand in for him at all onerous public functions he’s too polite to refuse. Sadly, affable, honest mimic Mike is soon innocently complicating the Action Ace’s double lives to the point of imminent calamity and when the hapless doppelganger is kidnapped, panic ensues following wildfire rumours of the hero losing his powers. Realising the jig is up, Superman takes drastic action…

Concluding this final Golden Age collection, Pages 506-520 (July 10th – October 16th 1949) detail a bizarre fantasy wherein Superman emulates the travels of Lemuel Gulliver in a story within a story. To cheer up a love-crushed youngster, the Metropolis Marvel recounts his travails on a distant heavy-gravity world where his powers fluctuated and he faced miniscule warriors and lumbering giants, overthrew a tyrant before brokering peace and even arranging a love match between representatives of each side!

The Golden Age Superman: – Sunday Pages 1946-1949 – was the last of two huge (312 x 245 mm), lavish, high-end twinned hardbacks re-presenting the Man of Steel’s exploits during WWII and the immediate aftermath. They were a welcome addition to the superb commemorative series of Library of American Comics which preserved in luxurious splendour such landmark strips as Lil Abner, Tarzan, Rip Kirby, Polly and her Pals and many of the abovementioned cartoon icons. It’s an unimaginable joy to see these neglected Superman stories again, offering a far more measured, domesticated and comforting side of one of America’s most unique contributions to world culture. It’s also a pure delight to see some of the most engaging yesterdays of the Man of Tomorrow. Join me, see for yourself and agitate for the entire library to be released in digital editions…
© 2014 DC Comics. All rights reserved. SUPERMAN and all related characters and elements are trademarks of DC Comics.

Today in 1883, Edwin Balmer – journalist/fantasist/author/co-creator of the Speed Spaulding sci fi strip – was born. The day also saw the deaths of groundbreaking cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay (Little Nemo in Slumberland, Gertie the Dinosaur, Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend) in 1934 and Reg’lar Fellers, It’s A Great Life If You Don’t Weaken, Wide Awake Willie creator Gene Byrnes in 1974.

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Spacehawk


By Basil Wolverton with commentary by Monte Wolverton (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-550-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Basil Wolverton was one of a kind: an artist, humourist and wordsmith of unique skill and imagination and one whose controversial works inspired and delighted many whilst utterly revolting others. Born in Central Point, Oregon on July 9th 1909, Wolverton worked as a Vaudeville performer, reporter, illustrator and cartoonist. However, unlike most artistic tyros of his time, he preferred to stay far away from the big city. For most of his life, he mailed in his artistic offerings from the rural wilderness of Vancouver, Washington State.

He made his first national cartoon sale at age 16 and began pitching newspaper strips in the late 1920s. A great fan of fantastic tales and the swiftly-developing science fiction genre, Wolverton sold Marco of Mars to the Independent Syndicate of New York in 1929, but the company ultimately declined to publish it, citing its similarity to the popular Buck Rogers feature they sought to compete with!

Equally at home with comedy, horror and adventure/fantasy material, the young creative dynamo adapted easily to the notion of superheroes, and began working extensively in the new medium of comic books, generating such gems as Spacehawks and Disk-Eyes the Detective for Circus Comics, plus a brace of minor hits and unabashed classics. These included Rockman – Underground Secret Agent for Timely/Marvel’s USA Comics and today’s star: the grimly imaginative (but unrelated) cosmic avenger Spacehawk for Target Comics. Apparently tireless and blessed with unlimited imagination, Wolverton also produced a seemingly endless supply of comedic features, ranging from extended series (like Superman/sports parody Powerhouse Pepper) to double-, single- and half-page gag fillers such as Bedtime Bunk, Culture Quickie and Bedtime Banter.

In 1946, he notoriously won a national competition held by Al Capp – of Li’l Abner fame – to visualise Lena the Hyena, that strip’s “ugliest woman in the world”, and, during the space and horror boom the 1950s, crafted some of the most imaginative short stories comics have ever seen. He also worked for Mad Magazine with staggering effect…

Wolverton became a member of the Radio Church of God in 1941. The organisation was devised by Herbert W. Armstrong: a prototype televangelist of a then-burgeoning Christian fundamentalist movement. In 1956, Wolverton illustrated the founder’s pamphlet 1975 in Prophecy and two years later produced a stunning illustrative interpretation of The Book of Revelation Unveiled at Last. Soon after, he began writing and drawing an illustrated 6-volume adaptation of the Old Testament. Entitled The Bible Story: The Story of Man, it was serialised in the sect’s journal The Plain Truth. His association with the Radio Church of God endured for the rest of his life. In 1973 the artist returned to comic books, illustrating more of his memorably comedic grotesques for DC’s Plop!, before suffering a stroke the next year. Basil Wolverton died on December 31st 1978.

His greatest triumph is undoubtedly the WWII-adjacent adventures of a mysterious, solitary steely-jawed he-man known only as Spacehawk. The strip debuted in the June 1940 issue of Target Comics (volume 1, #5) and ran for 30 issues until Wolverton left the company. With his origins only hinted at, Spacehawk initially prowled the star-lanes and outer reaches: a grim, relentless avenger of the persecuted innocent,. The stark, boldly exaggerated but meticulous art served only to highlight the singular appearance of the alien monstrosities and landscapes envisaged by Wolverton and defeated by “the Superhuman Enemy of Crime”. Some kids had nightmares after reading Spacehawk, and many parents wrote complaining letters because of it…

This epic assemblage gathers all those stunning stories in one breathtaking curated outburst, and begins by sharing pertinent background and context regarding the artist and his works in Monte (his son and also a cartoonist) Wolverton’s Introduction “The Lone Wolf of Void”. The heir also provided – from his father’s notes – individual episode names for those yarns that were originally untitled. Thereafter, the entire Spacehawk oeuvre unfolds in blistering force and all its delightfully overwhelming mechanistic totality.

Wolverton senior was clearly an avid follower of the nascent new genre of “scienti-fiction” in the grand Hugo Gernsback manner and his vivid, vibrant pages were bursting with highbrow concepts and images built from Functional Utilitarianism, with every panel crumbling under the weight of assorted tubes or tentacles, rockets, rays and bolts (both kinds) in service to the tale of a solitary, implacable dispenser of pitiless cosmic justice and retribution…

Just remember, this is not “retro”. This is what the term retro is referring to…

In the first episode (from Target Comics volume 1 #5 and cover-dated June 1940) the living enigma prowls the life-packed solar system in an era of constant interplanetary travel and commerce, albeit one plagued by petty regional tyrants and interworld piracy. With nothing but veiled hints of his coming from another system – if not galaxy – Spacehawk was simply a superior being resolved to do good and punish evil: a physical and mental marvel, brilliant beyond measure, and armed with psionic powers and an arsenal of astounding devices he set about righting wrongs wherever he found them. Yes: Doc Savage in space…

Delivered in an eye-popping and baroque style of fantastic imagination, introductory exploit ‘Spacehawk and the Creeping Death from Neptune’ sees the pitiless, mysteriously masked nemesis of evil drawn to the eighth planet to rescue kidnapped humans used as test subjects for sadistic Martian pirate Gorvak who is employing protoplasmic horrors to kill his victims.

With those monsters safely despatched, the still-faceless hero returned in vol. 1 #6 for ‘Spacehawk and the Lost Tribe of Mercury’ to save – through forced evolution – peaceful sea-dwellers on Venus as predatory Mercurians Rogg & Grebo ravage the water-world as they seek to locate, rob and kill refugees from their own fiery world, before #7 details how a beautiful Earth woman unmasks him. Whilst battling bizarre bandits Jark & Zork in ‘Spacehawk and the Perilous Planetoid Trap’ he strives to crush ruthless pirates using ballistic asteroids and gravity waves to plunder stellar shipping, but almost abandons his mission thanks to the charms of a newly-liberated slave girl…

Back to his stolid dedicated self, the Lone Wolf then battles cunning scavengers from his past and another star-system in ‘Spacehawk and the Vulture Men from the Void’ and displays his undercover credentials when he is dragged into the cesspit morass of politics in #9’s ‘Spacehawk and Mayhem at the Martian Election’. In Target Comics #10 ‘Spacehawk and the Pirate City on Venus’ – wherein the vigilante saves interplanetary police from a cosmic corsair citadel by extraordinary trans-species brain surgery – is supplemented by prose vignette ‘The Scratches of Doom – A Spacehawk Adventure’ as the astral avenger uses ancient detective methods to ferret out a cunning but short-sighted murderer. TC #11 finds him back in all his visual magnificence for ‘Spacehawk and the Pirates of Saturn’ as his relentless pursuit of evil briefly reunites him with Galar: another of his own race of supermen but one who has drifted from the path of virtue and valour…

Target #12 (January 1941) ended the first volume by introducing some recurring friends and foes as ‘Spacehawk and the Treachery of Smebar’ sees the hero save Neptune’s Noomite Queen Haba from her lustful, ambitious and usurping chief minister – who sees himself as a potential global overlord – whilst volume 2 #1 sees the Lone Wolf still in the vicinity and the focus of ‘Droon’s Plot Against Spacehawk’. However, the promise of Haba’s vile science advisor to make the enigmatic hero more tractable and amenable to her amorous overtures is foiled in vol. 2 #2’s ‘Spacehawk and the Master Plan of Droon’… just in time for a radical course correction…

Redefined by the designation Defender of America, the remaining Spacehawk tales are all Earth-based, with his mighty mentality and staggering superscience aimed at a contemporary, immediate and local threat. When the US entered the war on December 8th 1941, Wolverton’s editors compelled him to shift his story perspectives. Thus the space ranger took up a close orbit and faced Axis powers Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan (but not Italy) who gave the stellar Sentinel far more trouble than all the devils in the rest of the solar system, thereby further diluting the eerie power of the series but never the astounding illustration. By the end of 1942 (Target Comics volume 3, #10) Wolverton and his interplanetary masterpiece were gone, and headed for less hostile climes and more appreciative bosses.

In the first Terran trial he rapidly ends a Japanese scheme to bomb American cities from an artificial asteroid before vol. 2 #3’s ‘Spacehawk and the Undersea Tank’ sees Democracy’s newest champion spectacularly scuttling a city-sized subsea moving fortress constructed to sink US shipping and destroy the Panama Canal…

Wolverton’s wicked gift for caricature increasingly came into play from now on, and in Spacehawk and the Submarine Attack’ the alien Übermensch abducts grotesque and clownish German dictator “Moosler” and gives him a terrifying taste of battlefield conditions before deploying his mentally-controlled robotmen to wreck another marine masterplan in vol 2. #5’s ‘Spacehawk and the German Submarine Carrier’, after which ‘Spacehawk and the German Snow Airbase’ details how a hidden arctic airfield is destroyed and all its bombers shot down by the Stratospheric Sentinel…

An earthly archenemy manifests next as a sinister mercenary scientist steals many of the Lone Wolf’s secrets (including the ubiquitous and awesome antigravity principles) after our hero is ambushed and tortured in ‘Dr. Gore’s Hidden Lab’. Although his escape is prompt and vengeance terrible, the miscreant is as hard to kill as a cockroach and promptly retaliates in sequel saga ‘Dr. Gore’s Ant-Gravity Villainy’. Thankfully, the hero has enlisted a willing extraterrestrial sidekick in mighty minion Dork, a gleeful but so-homely comedic collaborator set on smashing bad guys and a being happy to maroon Gore on barren Mars once Spacehawk has done with him…

Target Comics vol, 2 #9 introduces another manic and hilariously libellous faux Fuhrer as ‘Nitwitler’s Secret Stratosphere Ships’ finds Spacehawk saving Canada from high-altitude bombardment before ‘Spacehawk and the Disks of Death’ sees him perform similar service, saving San Franciso from propaganda inundation and deadly skyscraper-scything missiles…

A change of pace in v2 #11 has the hero and Dork heading out west to stop subversive Bund leader Herman Vogel building a Fifth Column army in ‘Spacehawk and the Bullet Ship …That Brought Vengeance from the Void’ before the final issue of volume 2 (cover-dated February 1942) explores ‘Spacehawk and the Return of Dr. Gore’. Now, having escaped Mars, the tyrannical technologist wreaks vengeance on American infrastructure using stolen antigravity tricks… until Spacehawk intervenes…

Volume 3 #1 (March 1942) ramps up the patriotic fervour as ‘Spacehawk and the Battling Bullet Ships’ details the Deep Space Duo’s demolition of enemy planes bombing Iceland, before again going undercover to ferret out saboteurs wrecking dam construction in ‘Spacehawk and the Case of the Black Avenger’. Then, madder than ever, Dr. Gore resurfaces in ‘Spacehawk and the Blazing Death’ using an artificial storm cloud to blast US ships after which a turning point is reached…

Vowing to use his science directly for the war effort, the alien ace joins government think tanks in ‘Spacehawk and his Super Divebomber’ (Target vol. 3 #4) building revolutionary aircraft and crushing the wave of saboteurs resolved to destroy them. However, he is soon called away to wipe out a fiendish Japanese super-sub squadron in 5 ‘Spacehawk and the Devil Divers of the Deep’ before going on to Alaska in vol.3 #6 and destroying an invasion force in ‘Spacehawk and the Secret Japanese Base’…

‘Spacehawk and the Mystery of the Green Faces’ finds him recalled to Washington DC to cure a diabolical bio-weapon that turns sufferers into emerald-hued raving fascists. After defeating the archenemy behind the threat he then delves into creating his own weapon of mass destruction in ‘Spacehawk and the Supersonic Siren’…

The foe of fascism was happy to employ their own methodology against them with both bio-weapons and ultimate destruction devices leaping off his drawing board and into action, but he also fought an occasional small battle. In TC v3 #9, Spacehawk and the Case of The Missing Tires’ delivers a wry, light-hearted romp as the Lone Wolf grudgingly helps a feisty motorist made victim of tyre thieves (a grievous and growing felony in those times of war-effort rationing) and finds himself in over his head as left-leaning actress Diana Drean refuses to be patronised, assisted, sidelined or assassinated by the tyre-stealing gangsters…

Sadly that delightful switch in tone was never built upon as vol 3 #10 (December 1942) presented one final exploit in ‘Spacehawk and the Secret Submarine Fuel Depot’ with the space ace uncovering an enemy U-Boat installation in neutral Mexico and taking appropriate definitive action….

And that was that.

Changing times and tastes meant that Wolverton never returned to dramatic serial storytelling but instead went on to master anthological short graphic fiction – especially in the booming post-war fields of horror and science fiction (so stay tuned for those in days to come). This titanic tome also abruptly ends, delivering one last treat in a sublimely pencilled ‘Spacehawk cover sketch’ plus his only front of house appearance in the ‘Spacehawk cover’ on Traget Comic vol. 1 7…

Finally achieving the measure of popular recognition he always deserved, Basil Wolverton was a truly unique visionary and graphic pathfinder who inspired hundreds and entertained millions. This compendium from 2012 gathers all those so-Retro sidereal sagas and is an unmissable example of a creator given latitude and permission to be himself. If you love outré wonder and breathless, breakneck joy in motion, this is a treat you must not miss…
© 2012 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All contents © 2012 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. unless otherwise noted. “The Lone Wolf of the Void” © 2012 Monte Wolverton. All rights reserved.

Today in 1897 pioneering and groundbreaking Russo-Serbian cartoonist Ivan Sensin was born, with Barney Google creator Fred Lasswell arriving in 1916; Archie Comics head honcho Richard Goldwater, coming along in 1936 and Underground legend S. Clay Wilson (Zap Comix, The Checkered Demon) in1941. Italian comics creator Anna Brandoli (Cuba 42, La Strega) was born in 1945 and French artist/raconteur Thierry “Ted” Benoit (Bingo Bongo et son Combo Congolais, Ray Banana, Blake and Mortimer) followed in 1947: as did cartoonist Ray Billingsley (Lookin’ Fine, Curtis) in 1957 and artist/letterer Galen Showman in 1972.

Today in 1887 journalist, playwright, social reformer and Punch co-founder Henry Mayhew died. In 1982 Canadian adventure strip god Hal Foster (Tarzan, Prince Valiant) died too.

Today in 2007 The United States Postal Service introduced Marvel superhero postage stamps.

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Murder by Remote Control


By Janwillem van de Wetering & Paul Kirchner Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)

ISBN: 978-0-486-80560-3 (TPB) 978-0-486-81208-3 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Graphic Novels are utterly ubiquitous these days, even though a vast part of the population still can’t – or won’t – differentiate between the big books we insiders mean and the flimsy, pamphlet periodicals comprising the bulk of items on sale.

Can I at least muddy the waters a little more?

Yes I Can.

Something that gathers a selection of previously-published material – strips from newspapers or anthological sources, comic book issues, selected stories on a theme – all used to be deemed an Album, Collection, or even, Gods help us, an Omnibus or Trade Paperback. These included any re-presentation of superhero sagas like Archives or Essentials, themed or curated conglomerations like Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told or Marvel Visionaries or even the groundbreaking Cerebus “phone-book” editions. Anything serialised in periodicals, but intended from conception to be eventually gathered into one unified form, WAS a graphic novel (Maus, Watchmen, Persepolis or Cerebus again). As Bugs Bunny adroitly quipped “confusing… ain’t it?”

Any long-form tale utilising sequential narrative (A Contract with God, Sabre, Pride of Baghdad) released in one big bite is a true Graphic Novel these days called an OGN -Original Graphic Novel, That’s what Will Eisner, Jim Steranko & Neal Adams were getting at when they started using the term in the late 1970s, and it’s what we should mean when lobbing these terms about willy-nilly.

For every person who accepts those categorisations, there are dozens who will violently disagree and can cite at least one package which correctly refutes and defies the definition. And because I’m a wilfully contrary pixie, I’ll just remind you that Charles Dickens published his greatest books as periodical magazine part-works before some avaricious bright spark stitched them all together in single complete editions called novels…

I don’t care: just remember all modern comics publishers crave the cachet of the term graphic novel attached to their product but it is one that has been adopted and most ardently championed by retailers and distributors who, from the moment big books of drawn stories started appearing at the turn of the 19th to 20th century, needed some way to pigeonhole and differentiate them from cookbooks, coffee-table tomes, kids storybooks and other releases packed with pictures.

Murder by Remote Control is a true Graphic Novel – amongst the very first planned and premeditated examples of the form – and after decades in obscurity was granted a second chance to be seen it in all its intended glory…

In the 1980s US comics got a huge creative boost with the advent of high quality pictorial narrative magazines like Heavy Metal and Epic Illustrated which showcased adult-oriented material with high quality graphics and formats such as had taken Europe by storm a decade previously. Earlier American experience of such work had been limited to the Underground Comix scene (in terms of content if not production values, at least) and an occasional independent, out-market experiment of such maverick luminaries as Wallace Wood, Steve Ditko or Steranko.

When Heavy Metal premiered in April 1977, looking very much like its French conceptual parent Métal Hurlant, there was precious little original American material to supplement the sumptuous continental treats therein. One of the first US creators to join the magazine was Paul Kirchner (The Bus, Realms, Dope Rider), who had worked as an assistant to Wood in the early 1970s and contributed to such indie projects as Big Apple Comics. Born in 1952, Kirchner was in his third year at Cooper Union School of Art in New York when Neal Adams & Larry Hama introduced him to the horror editors at DC, whose anthology titles always needed fresh blood. He thereafter assisted Tex Blaisdell on Little Orphan Annie and in 1973 joined Ralph Reese at Wood’s studio.

A young man in tune with many spiritual and conceptual tropes prevalent during those culturally cosmopolitan times, there was a thoughtful, underplayed intensity in his meticulously-crafted work, but Kirchner was hampered by slow working-speed, at a time when quick turnaround always trumped artistic merit or quality. He eventually drifted out of comics to find far better-paying work in the advertising, animation and design trades. In recent years he has drifted back into comics with additions to his Bus and Dope Rider sequences…

Part of the reason for the transition is explained in his Introduction, which describes his meeting with Dutch expatriate author Janwillem Lincoln van de Wetering (The Empty Mirror, Grijpstra and de Gier crime novels, Hugh Pine (the Porcupine) Judge Dee Plays His Lute) He is a global-traveller and Zen Buddhist scholar who eventually settled in Maine. Under circumstances best enjoyed first hand by reading the actual Intro, the exuberant writer and jaded cartoonist met in 1981 and decided to work together on a dream project: a crime mystery in comics form.

The project took Kirchner a few years to complete but when ready for publication the real hard work began. Most publishers prefer to work in 20-20 hindsight: happy to jump on a successfully blazing bandwagon but preferring to chew off their own arms rather than risk money on being first with something new that can’t be easily categorised. The completed work was schlepped around for two years until Ballantine bought it in 1986. This was when Maus, The Dark Knight Returns and Watchman simultaneously slapped the world in the face and the public went ga-ga for graphic narratives…

Ballantine – who had decades earlier introduced America to comic strip paperbacks with its digest-sized collections of Mad reprints – were willing to take a chance on a mass-market edition, albeit in a diminished size and format, even though as Moord Op Afstand the tale had been a success in Holland and elsewhere as a lavish, full-sized hardback album. Despite favourable coverage from Gahan Wilson in The New York Times Book Review, that bowdlerised Murder by Remote Control sank without trace and the creators reluctantly moved on to other things.

Back in 2016, after far too long, Dover added the sublime metaphorical masterpiece in monochrome to their crucial list of rescued comics treasures, restored to its intended page size (278 x 218 mm) and with the original cover replacing the sliced-&-sampled multiple-panel mock-up of the 1986 edition. The story itself would have been groundbreaking if it had been released in 1983 but happily remains decidedly off-key, devilishly off-beat and delightfully engaging with echoes of Agent Dale Cooper, Blue Velvet or other cult entertainment icons eerily abounding here…

After obnoxious property speculator Mr. Jones starts buying up sections of idyllic Maine coastline, he suddenly turns up dead in his little fishing dingy. The death occurs in full view of four residents who each might have a strong motive to remove the interloper, but the County Sheriff is extremely keen on ruling the case an accidental death. However, his report results in the unwelcome arrival of agonisingly restrained and refined – almost emotionless – Detective Jim Brady from the Augusta Office.

Cool and preternaturally calm, the self-effacing little man has a way of seeing deep into the hearts and minds of everybody, and he quickly rules it a homicide by most arcane means. Now he’s planning on hanging around, probing the characters and backgrounds of the uniquely baroque quartet of suspects and undoubtedly sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong…

Informed by Zen principles, the story unfolds as Brady flamboyantly deconstructs each potential suspect, consequently uncovering far more secrets than any little rural enclave could possibly contain before reaching his conclusions. However, even with the case closed, his actions remain at odds with your run-of-the-mill copper, and there’s one last twist still in store…

Cool, surreal and challengingly psychedelic, the plot is realised with sleek and understated panache; mixing the welcoming warmth and idiosyncratic style of Ditko’s figurework and facial expressions with the glossily sleek glamour and factual solidity of Wood. This book is a delicious treat for the eyes and a therapeutic exercise for the mind…

Supplemented by Stephen R. Bissette’s incisive and expansive Afterword ‘A Man, A Boat, A Bay, A Bite, A Beer Can…’ offering historical context and artistic commentary, this is a magnificent lost gem, rightly restored to its place in the history of our art form, but it’s also a beautifully-crafted, intellectually challenging Bloody Good Read.
Go get it.

© 1986, 2016 by The Wetering Family Trust and Paul Kirchner. Afterword © 2016 by Stephen R. Bissette. All rights reserved.

Today in 1936 British licensed strip superstar creator Angus Allan (Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Logan’s Run, Six Million Dollar Man, DangerMouse) was born, and shares his natal day with iconic cartoonist Vaughn Bodé (Cheech Wizard, Cobalt-60, Deadbone) in 1941.

In 1939 this day DC Thomson’s landmark but luckless UK weekly The Magic Comic launched, as did Frédéric Othon Théodore “Fred” Aristidès’ strip Philémon in Pilote in 1965 and Go Nagai’s manga thriller Violence Jack in 1973.

We lost two giants of all ages cartooning on this date: Mickey Mouse pathfinder Floyd Gottfredson in 1986 and the wonderfully inventive, brilliant talented and kind John Ryan (Captain Pugwash, Harris Tweed, Mary, Mungo and Midge, Crockle, Sir Prancelot) in 2009.

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Mighty Love


By Howard Chaykin, with Don Cameron, Kurt Hathaway & Dave Stewart (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-930-0 (HB) 978-1-56389-931-7 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times and deliberately employed to provoke and annoy you.

Don’t let the outfits fool you: it’s not just another kinky love story…

Oddly released under the DC rather than Vertigo imprint when it debuted in 2003, this is a story about crime in the big city and of the compromises individuals must make to achieve their private and personal purposes.

Delaney Pope is a rough, tough cop on a completely corrupt force who is fed up with seeing the scum she arrests get away with murder – and far worse. Lincoln Reinhardt is a slick, liberal defense attorney constantly thwarting the frames and set-ups of those cops. He constantly clashes with Pope in the course of his job. They both loathe each other with a passion.

Unbeknownst to either they both assuage their workday frustrations by putting on masks and costumes to beat the crap out of criminals (with or without badges) in the commission of their crimes on the streets and in the backrooms… an arena where there are no doubts about guilt, innocence or mitigations.

The thrill of these nocturnal forays inevitably lead to a meeting of “Skylark” and “Iron Angel”, and a tenuous, teasing (if not actually titillating) team-up when separate cases bring them together against the city’s first criminal mastermind. Not knowing each other’s real identity, but afraid to unmask and lose that so-tantalising tension, the pair must decide what’s most important, the actual or the promised…

This delightfully fizzy adult romp prods all the fetishistic trappings of superhero storytelling as the brassy and whimsical writer/artist (with computer effects by Don Cameron, lettering by Kurt Hathaway and colours from Dave Stewart) blends classic romcom movie riffs as seen in The Shop Around the Corner, The Thin Man, Pat and Mike and even Adam’s Rib with a welter of crime caper movies to produce a costume drama in the unmistakable Chaykin manner.

Presumably a pilot for an unrealized longer series, Mighty Love was a fast & stylish, done-in-one oddity that reads well and looks great – so if all you want is a good time; Baby, look no further, and seek this out…
© 2003 Howard Chaykin, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Born today: long serving Golden Age artist/strip creator John Lehti (Crimson Avenger, Cotton Carver, Tarzan, Flash Gordon, Tales of the Great Book, Tommy of the Big Top, Big Town, Lassie, Tom Corbet, Space Cadet, Sgt. Rock, The Losers) in 1912; Al Bryant (Gale Allen, Shark Brodie, Military Comics, Feature Comics) in 1917; multi-talented artist/editor/publisher Dick Giordano (Sarge Steel, Judomaster, Batman, Human Target, Elongated Man, Modesty Blaise, countless features at Warren, Valiant, DC & Marvel) in 1932 and, in 1990 Brazilian artist Bilquis Evely (Luluzinha Teen e Sua Turma, Doc Savage, Shaft, Wonder Woman, The Dreaming, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow).

On this date in 1975, Walt Kelly’s astounding strip Pogo published its last episode, and in 1995 writer/editor/animator George Caragonne (The Legend of Zelda, Masters of the Universe, Planet Terry, Star Brand, Penthouse Comix) died today.